Overview and scrutiny in Hillingdon

Local authorities have responsibility for scrutiny of health services. Hillingdon External Services Scrutiny Committee - part of Hillingdon Borough Council - held a meeting this month in which it grilled representatives of four NHS Trusts.

Antony Sumara, Chief Executive of Hillingdon Primary Care Trust,

. . Antony Sumara CEO Hillingdon P)CT

reported that this year the PCT is reducing its in-year deficit and that next year it should achieve in-year balance, but it will carry forward £54m of historic debt. With help from the Department of Health and NHS London it is exploring the possiblity of insourcing help from the commercial sector for its commissioning and some other functions.

Clair Murdoch, Chief Executive of Central North West London Mental Health Trust, reported that having recently taken over responsibility for the unit, her Trust has spent £60,000 on refurbishing the Riverside in-patient unit at Hillingdon Hospital. It has also lifted a recruitment freeze and plans to re-open the empty wards in June as an intensive care unit. Staff morale was said to have been given a boost.

David McVittie, Chief Executive of Hillingdon Hospital,

. . ..David McVittie, CEO Hillingdon Hospital

noted that mortality rates in his hospital had improved by 20-30% and that a recent national staff survey put the Trust in the top 20% of Trusts for most of the 28 survey areas. On MRSA, always a major concern, Hillingdon Hospital will screen all in-patients on arrival from April.

Dr Caroline Shuldham, Director of Governance and Nursing at Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospital, reported that the SHA has been asked if the Trust can proceed to an Outline Business Case for long-term redevelopment of the Harefield facilities, either at Harefield or possibly at Mount Vernon. The Trust hopes to gain Foundation Trust status on 1st May.

The above points are just a selection of the highlights from a meeting packed with interest. Other items noted elsewhere on this website were reported to the Scrutiny Committee, but have deliberately not been noted here, to avoid repetition.

Joan Davis

Chairman

The Community Voice

Update on Hillingdon Hospital

This Trust once again expects to make an end of year surplus, in great contrast to other hospitals nearby.

Change is in the air with a new Urgent Care Centre fronting the A&E Department at Hillingdon from 2nd April and plans for a complete rebuild of the hospital nearing completion. Final approval for the rebuild still lies ahead but may be expected later this year. Achievement of Foundation Trust status is expected next Spring. Mount Vernon Treatment Centre is already underway and is expected to open late 2008. The Trust has a positive zing about it!

All this is a tonic for staff and holds welcome promise for patients too.

Joan

NHS London

This new strategic health authority is slowly finding its feet, with 79 staff in place from its total complement of around 140.

One new appointment, confirmed at its meeting on 28th March, is Antony Sumara as its new Turnaround Director. Until recently he was Chief Executive of Hillingdon Primary Care Trust, where his six month's stay reduced the current year's deficit from £22.5m to £11m, so he arrive in his new post with a good record.

NHS London's first task is to review its huge patch. To help it with this, it has set up a review called "Healthcare for London", led by Professor Sir Ara Dazi. His first stage report suggests that major changes lie ahead. We must watch developments closely.

One major new proposal is already being explored. This is to link Hammersmith Hospital, St Mary's Hospital and Imperial College in a new Academic Health Science Centre. It is hoped that this development will lift London into the world-class league of health services, which London patients will surely welcome.

Joan

North West London Hospitals

After a long financial struggle it seems that this year the Board has achieved 'in-year' financial balance and will be making progress towards clearing the long-standing financial problem.

Children's Services: the recent Health Care Commission report gave details of a visit in 2006, based on information from 2005, but was only published a month ago. Most of the Commission's worries have been addressed and impovements implemented. A "Children's Board" is being established to supervise future Trust activities.

An Equality Policy has been adopted: this is a single policy to cover issues of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and disablity. One might have thought that all of this ought to be simple to describe - all 'good things' where we are against discrimination - but it takes about 30 pages to describe. Wow.

Paul Samet

Making new contacts

Our publicity event in Key House, Yiewsley, went well on Friday. It was good to meet representatives from a number of organisations, to tell them what we do and to exchange views on health issues,and those present were pleased to know that there is a group of people interested in their concerns.



Participants from West Drayton had particular concerns. They feel that local health services, particularly provision of a modern health centre, are not keeping pace with the growing population of that area.

However, many concerns were shared by all. Saving cancer services at Mount Vernon was everyone’s number one issue, and parking at Hillingdon Hospital was a universal concern, as was public transport to local hospitals. Transport to Mount Vernon will become an even more pressing issue when patients have to go to there for surgery next year. The new Mount Vernon Treatment Centre will open late in 2008 and it is expected to take 90% of planned surgery from Hillingdon Hospital.

People throughout Hillingdon look to that hospital and Hillingdon Primary Care Trust for NHS services. Pulling together on mutual concerns will help us all. We hope our guests will join us at future meetings, to build on goodwill and strengthen the links we forged together on Friday.

Joan

Mount Vernon Cancer Centre - even bigger and better!

Visitors to Mount Vernon in recent times have marvelled at the building works alongside the Cancer Centre. Some lucky ones may even have seen the miracle of new bunkers with 8 foot thick walls being craned into place.

. . . . New Linear Accelerator Building

Many people are bemused. The streets are full of petitions to "Save Mount Vernon Cancer Services" - yet the Cancer Centre is getting bigger every day! How can these two facts be reconciled?

The truth is that the new buildings house five new linear accelerators, to provide radiotherapy for patients from now up to the time when the Cancer Centre is threatened with closure. The petition looks further ahead and calls for cancer services to stay permanently at Mount Vernon.

. .New Linear Accelerator - LA8

This Cancer Centre is the biggest south of Manchester and serves a population of over 2 million people. Moving it would be disastrous for local people so we are fighting to save it, not just for today, but for tomorrow too.

. Linear Accelerator LA8

A small party of Community Voice members were privileged to have a tour of the new buildings this week and what a surprise we had - spacious and bright treatment rooms, comfortable waiting areas and upstairs a whole floor of new offices. For the first time the Cancer Centre has its own purpose built administartive accommodation - up to now it has had to make do with nooks and crannies all over the place.

We learned a number of surprising facts. The new building was prefabricated in sections and theoretically could be moved, despite it feeling a very solid construction. Even the new radiotherapy bunkers are supposed to be "demountable", which is extremely hard to believe. The new linear accelerators need highly skilled calibration work on site before they become operational, but all will be in use by the end of the year. The first patient has already used LA8.

. .The Control room for LA8

The total staff in the Cancer Centre numbers around 400 people. Both clinical staff and office staff are delighted with their new accommodation. Maybe these attractive facilites will help recruitment and retention of staff. There is a national shortage of medical physicists, engineers, radiographers, radiotherapists, and specialist nurses so they can pick where to work and we want them to pick Mount Vernon!

. .The New Cancer Centre Office

The next major project is to improve the Cancer Centre's Chemotherapy Suite and to extend its potential to undertake research in that field. A campaign to raise over £1 million is already underway and the organisers are confident that the necessary capital can be raised.

.. .The 'Old' Chemotherapy Suite
Aren't we lucky to have this wonderful facility so close to home! Now we must all fight to keep it there.

Joan

Truly private accommodation - in the NHS!

The next meeting of the Community Voice will be on Thursday 5th April, at 7.45pm in the Post Graduate Centre at Mount Vernon Hospital.

The guest speaker will be Dr. Susan LaBrooy, Medical Director of Hillingdon Hospital. Her talk is entitled: "Plans to make Hillingdon Hospital a pioneer in providing single room accommodation for its patients".

Most people think private rooms and en-suite shower and WC belong only in the expensive private sector of health care - but, apparently, not so in Hillingdon! Visitors are welcome. Come early to be sure of a seat.

Please use gate 1 and park in the main car-park. Parking is free for our meetings.

Joan

Our big petition got off to a good start today!

Everything went as planned for the launch of our petition to save cancer services at Mount Vernon Hospital.

The small enthusiastic crowd arrived outside the Cancer Centre on time, complete with a banner, tee shirts, and masses of petitions. The three MPs all turned up as promised - Nick Hurd, John Randall, Gareth Thomas. Several photographers and press reporters were there too, to record the event and interview supporters. The sun shone and the sky was blue, so everyone was happy.

Why are we campaigning? The collapse of plans to move the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre to Hatfield gives a golden opportunity to re-open debate on the future of this cancer centre. There is a strong case to leave it exactly where it is, serving a population of over 2 million people.

We are confident that this petition will prove there is overwhelming support from local people to keep the Cancer Centre at Mount Vernon. Its superb services give it a local reputation that few hospitals can match. No one wants to lose it!

Politicians find strong public opinion hard to ignore, so the petition can be a powerful tool. As petition numbers grow, so does the likelihood of our campaign's success! Please do all you can to make sure we succeed.

Petition forms are being distributed widely. They are also available on request by emailing joandavis@onetel.com or by telephoning 01895 636095.

Launch of Community Voice paper petition

Our petition calling for the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre to stay at Mount Vernon is being launched on Friday 16th March.

Copies of the petition form , a sheet giving key facts about the petition and an A4 poster for shop windows etc. These can all be photocopied freely - but can be obtained on request, call 01895 636095 or 01895 634015 - the latter two sheets on coloured paper to make them more conspicuous.

The launch is outside the Cancer Centre, at the Harefield end of the building, at 9.30am Friday 16th March. We expect three cross-party (MPs to be there - Nick Hurd, John Randall and Gareth Thomas, (who is a Junior Minister) - John McDonnell supports it too but cannot be present. We expect press photographers



We want a small crowd to show public support so hope that anyone who is free will try to come.

A check on parking on Fridays, found:
Inside Mount Vernon before 9am - no problems on Ducks Hill Road - no traffic lights!
At 9am there were over a dozen free parking spaces in the upper part of the main car park near Gate 1. There were many more free spaces in the lower car park. At 9.05am there were a number of free spaces in the car park at the other end of the site, off White Hill

Do come if you can. We have a few free car park exit tokens - priority for these will be for cars with multiple occupants!

Donald

Pre-launch of petition at Mount Vernon Hospital

I had lunch at the Mount Vernon Hospital yesterday. While there, I set up the Banner which read - 'SAVE CANCER SERVICES AT MOUNT VERNON HOSPITAL'. On the table were some petition forms and the yellow sheet - Petition, sign here. By the time I had finished a very nice curry and rice lunch, there were over 80 signatures. The people had come from far afield.



As is normal, when it comes to saving the Cancer Services at Mount Vernon Hospital, people are very enthusiastic. Some people took some forms away to fill in at their groups.
The official launch of The Community Voice paper petition will be held on Friday 16th March outside the Cancer Centre at 9.30 am on the Harefield side.

Nick Hurd MP and hopefully John Randall MP and Gareth Thomas MP will also be there, we are also expecting the local press to attend. Please join us to make the event a success.

Just to clear up a point raised yesterday, YES, you may sign this paper petition and the petition on the www.supportmountvernon.com

Donald Edwards

March meeting of the Community Voice

Dr Shilpa Patel was the guest speaker, representing the four GP Practices that will provide services in the Northwood Health Centre after the Shackman Practice moves out in May 2007.

Dr Patel, backed by various other members of the Northwood Health Centre, painted a grim picture of dedicated GPs and staff working in ancient and cramped accommodation. They would like to move into the adjacent empty Northwood & Pinner Hospital, possibly along-side other NHS facilities, but there is no money to make this happen.

In contrast, the Shackman Practice is excited about its move to new purpose-built accommodation at Mount Vernon - but, for the convenience of patients, it will still provide some surgeries in the old health centre. This move will release space at Northwood, which will take some of the pressures off other staff.

Max Black, the Shackman Practice Manager, was present. He explained that when he explored the possibility of building at Mount Vernon the situation was very different. His practice had a clear vision of what it hoped to achieve, the GPs were willing to risk borrowing a large sum of money to make it happen and, crucially, Hillingdon PCT did not have its current mill-stone of financial debt so it could afford to be generous. He acknowledged that similar options are no longer available to rebuild the Northwood Health Centre.

Perhaps the Northwood Health Centre will have to wait for sunnier times when NHS finances are more readily available. Its 10,000 patients certainly need its services, which should be provided in proper accommodation. There was obvious support from the audience for the Health Centre to take over the old Northwood and Pinner Hospital.

We hear on all sides that the NHS is emerging from its financial traumas. The GPs in the Northwood Health Centre must now clarify their vision and speak with one voice. They will then have a compelling case to present to the NHS, which will win our full support.

Joan Davis

Shorter waits in Hillingdon A&E - we hope!

Exciting news! In a few weeks' time Hillingdon A&E will incorporate a new Urgent Care Centre. This will be run by a consortioum of local GPs and Harmoni. Experienced salaried GPs will work on a roster system, in which local GPs may also participate.


Medical Director
Dr. Christopher Jowett MBBS, LRCR,MRCS,BSc.


Managing Director,
Mr. Steve Turner

With the exception of children and patients needing emergency care, patients arriving at A&E will immediately see a GP, who will direct them as appropriate to:
1. The full A&E team
2. GPs in private rooms within A&E, for full consultation and treatment
3. Or, after immediate advice, to other primary care services for follow-up support.

When fully operational, it is expected that this will be a daily service, from 9am until midnight, with always three or possibly four GPs available to see patients.

This service builds on the traditional GP role. Patients with relatively minor problems will no longer go to the back of the long A&E queue, waiting two or three hours for treatment. And with less pressure on the full A&E services, patients there will wait less time too.

Yes! It will save money! This is because the NHS tariff for GP services costs less than the tariff for A&E attendance.

Seems like a win-win situation for everyone - you, me and the PCT!

Joan Davis