April 2019 newsletter
Welcome to our latest newsletter! This month, we update you on our next public meeting, we share some national and local health news, and we continue to discuss St Albans Hospital and the planned changes being made for the hospital set up in the area.
There are a number of very active and vocal groups on the subject. Some are asking for money. We strongly encourage you to research this very complex initiative, before committing your cash. If you have any questions left unanswered, please share them with us.
We hope that you will find it informative and interesting. We welcome any additions or comments.
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Hospital redevelopment plans
The Hospital re-development plans continue to be controversial. The several groups championing a central, new, A&E, acute and planned care hospital have amalgamated into the 21st Century Hospital Group and claim to be supported by people throughout West Herts. On the other hand, Peter Taylor, the elected Mayor of Watford, and Watford Council favour keeping A&E in Watford. St. Albans District Council has voted to ask WHHT to retain hospital services in each of the three main centres of population, i.e. in Watford, Hemel and St. Albans, and in particular:
“… to retain a range of health service facilities at St. Albans City Hospital including planned surgery, an Urgent Treatment Centre, Midwife-led services, outpatient and diagnostic services …” and to ensure the future of Harpenden Memorial Hospital.
The SAPG has surveyed its own members to hear their opinion. 56% of the replies favoured the 3-site option, 62% felt they had enough information about the redevelopment plans, 68% had attended a meeting at which the plans had been discussed in the past year, 83% felt they understood the implications of the plans. Several replies mentioned the importance of long-term problems associated with local hospitals, e.g. A&E, waiting times and bed-blocking. We will bring these points to WHHT’s notice.
The WHHT and HVCCG intend to hold at least one more public meeting in the near future and WHHT’s Board will probably make its decision between the main options in June. SAPG advises everyone to find more information by visiting the WHHT and HVCCG websites.
In recent weeks SAPG has made further improvements to the way in which it communicates with its own members and with members of the public by setting up a Facebook page. "Like" it now.
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Our Public Meetings
Our previous public meeting was held on 27 March when Ed Knowles (Assistant Director for Health Integration with Herts County Council and Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group). Ed spoke and led a discussion on “Herts Adult Care Services.” and the Minutes of the meeting are available for you to read below.
Our next public meeting will be led by Brian Gunson of Hests Health Watch, who will speak and lead a discussion on “The NHS Long Term Plan.”
The meeting will start at 7.00 p.m. on Wednesday 5th June and will be held in Committee Room 1 in the District Council Offices, Civic Centre, St. Peter’s Street, St. Albans, close to the free parking in the Bricket Road car park.
NHS Health Care in South West Herts is commissioned by NHS Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group. They encourage patient involvement in their work and aim to inform the local population about NHS services and their development.
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Local Health News
From 1 April it has been possible for extended access, out of normal hours, GP appointments to be booked via the NHS 111 phone service. These appointments should become ever more widely available as GP Practices work together in Primary Care Networks, intended to allow 3 or so practices to cooperate to serve 30,000 to 50,000 people.
As of 1st October, adult care services hitherto provided for West Herts by the Herts Community Trust are to be supplied by the Central London Community Health Care NHS Trust. CLC will be based in the St. Albans Civic Centre Health Facility, and in the Harpenden Memorial Hospital. We hope that the Health Facility and Harpenden Memorial will be ready on time.
Conversations around the St. Albans Minor Injuries Unit continue. Some months ago the HVCCG decided in principle to upgrade it to an Urgent Treatment Centre but, as ever, “the devil is in the detail” and progress has been slow: finances, premises, and staffing are problematic. John Wigley understands that extended access appointments are now provided there. It is hoped to provide a “UTC Light”, nurse-led and supervised by a GP. Watch this space.
The Care Quality Commission’s reports on the West Herts Hospitals Trust are another long-running discussion. Overall WHHT still “requires improvement”. St. Albans City Hospital’s outpatient and planned surgery services are rated “good”. A&E at Watford General has risen from “inadequate” to “requires improvement”. On the other hand St. Albans MIU has slipped down to “inadequate” and the Hemel UTC is given “inadequate”, despite having received additional resources and offering additional services such as patient navigators.
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National Health News
Our regular readers will be aware that the government has not yet published its promised Green Paper (discussion document) on social services, which suggests that they are building a long term plan in parallel with that for the NHS.
They will also know that mischievous and unnecessary time-wasting call outs are continuing to delay response times when members of the public dial 999 and call an ambulance in a genuine emergency.
They may have heard that the NHS is floating the concept, and the practice, of “group consultations” in which several patients meet their GP at the same time. This has caused some scepticism but it is not intended for the diagnosis, but for patients who suffer from long term conditions such as diabetes to meet, to receive guidance, and to learn from one another, a process that has a therapeutic effect and improves medical outcomes.
The Herts and West Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership have begun a very roughly similar process by involving groups of patients in “co-production”, meeting with medics to help design new forms of NHS service for common conditions such as dementia or obesity.
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Full details about the way in which hospital services are being developed and why are available on the Herts Valleys CCG website. They explain how proposals will be developed over the next few months in consultation with the public, professionals and local organisations. There are links to a series of detailed documents containing the information used to evaluate the options.
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Happy to help.
Feel free to pass this Newsletter to any individual or group likely to be interested in it, such as your surgery’s Patient Participation Group.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please get in touch.
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