Interesting snippets about health in Hillingdon

Hillingdon PCT's recent Board meeting publicised facts and figures about the health of local people. Here are some interesting nuggets of information:

1. Hillingdon PCT is among the top 5% of PCTs commissioning most NHS continuing health care. This is much to the credit of Hillingdon PCT but, sadly, most long-term patients have to dig deep into their savings to provide what is euphemistically called social care, which is not paid for by the NHS.


2. The gap in the life expectancy between the fifth of wards with the highest and lowest life expectancy in Hillingdon is 4.8 years – the main driver for male inequality is cardiovascular disease (CVD).


3. The school height and weight survey showed that schools with high levels of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds also had higher levels of obesity among pupils.


4. There was an increase in births to mothers from ethnic minority backgrounds of 42% between 2001 and 2005.


5. Diabetes is above national average, explained by the local ageing south Asian population.


6. TB rates are high, like some other areas of London.


7. Based on these demographic trends Hillingdon’s Local Area Agreement focuses on:

• reducing smoking
• tackling obesity in children and mental health patients
• reducing low birth weight in babies
• better management of CVD.

Joan

Hillingdon Hospital - will it get its rebuild?

Hillingdon Hospital is well ahead with its plans to rebuild with 100% single rooms, but moving its plans forward needs support from NHS London. That is now uncertain because the report from Professor (now Lord) Ara Darzi on London's health services proposes a new strategic model with fewer acute hospitals and much work transferred to primary care.

So Hillingdon Hospital has first to establish where it will come in the new scheme of things, before it can even guess what premises it will need - which is very disappointing for staff who have laboured hard to complete plans based on the older model of care.

Perhaps all will be well and this hospital will continue to have an A&E day and night, with lots of emergency work to justify the new building as planned - or even find itself promoted to being a centre of excellence for stroke care or other specialties, which would need to be reflected in its premises design.

However, it could be demoted to just day-time A&E cover, with far fewer beds, or even turn into a general hospital with no A&E at all.

All this uncertainty is hard on staff and all they or anyone else can do is wait and see. Whether there are threats for the new Mount Vernon Treatment Centre or the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre are other conundrums. Of course we must welcome the new Academic Health Science Centre proposed for Hammersmith Hospital, St Mary's Hospital and Imperial College - and some local residents will benefit from their no doubt excellent services, but most of us will hope to have our medical services nearer to home. Maybe polyclinics are the answer, with around 25 GPs serving 50,000 people. Perhaps the old Northwood & Pinner Community Hospital will have a new lease of life in that disguise. One thing is certain, "All change!" is still in vogue in the NHS.


Joan

Farewell to Andrew Morgan

The Community Voice said farewell to Andrew Morgan at its July meeting.

Andrew has been a figure in our world for a long time, firstly representing Beds & Herts Health Authority (our sworn enemy on cancer issues), then later, three years ago, becoming Chief Executive of Harrow PCT, where to our surprise he was scrupulous in changing hats and forgetting past loyalties, then for a short time combining this with being part-time Chief Executive of Hillingdon PCT, and latterly also becoming within NHS London the Co-Chair of the North West London Strategy Group, dreaming up strategies far beyond the Harrow boundaries.Now he is off to Bedford PCT as Chief Executive there, a move he relishes as it is close to his home and will save him many hours travelling time each week.

Quite by chance he had agreed to be guest speaker at our July meeting before this new job arose, so we were lucky to meet him so close to his departure, only two days later. We wished him well and felt we were losing an old friend, which is quite a tribute to a one-time adversary.

What did he tell us? Well it is certainly all change in Harrow PCT which now has an Interim Chief Executive, an Interim Finance Director, an Interim Director of Public Health and three new Non-Executive Board Members!

As for the NW London strategy, that must fit within the overall London strategy, which almost certainly will depend on the report of Professor Sir Ara Darzi called "Healthcare for London" due for release on 11th July. Andrew made some shrewd guesses but it is really a case of watch this space.

Joan Davis

UPDATE ON THE PETITION

Update on our petition to "Save Mount Vernon Cancer Centre"

We are up to 51,000 signatures and are still collecting!

We shall go on collecting until the day we present the petition. The date will depend on when we can get an appointment to hand it in, which will probably be some time in September but it could be sooner. In the meantime we want those numbers to grow! To make this happen we need volunteers to collect in shopping areas, car boot sales and so on.

Let us know if YOU would like to help. Call - 01895 636095

Joan

Next Meeting of Community Voice -September 6th

Summer holidays are with us. With our July meeting over we expect to take a break until September - but if anything dramatic arises, our despatch riders will be out! So, our next meeting is expected to be at 7.45 pm, on Thursday 6th September, in the Post Graduate Centre
Mount Vernon Hospital.





Peter Ostler, Director of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, has agreed to be our guest speaker, to update us on Cancer Centre news and recent developments in cancer treatment. We look forward to hearing Peter Ostler - and hope to tell him that our petition to "Save Cancer Services at Mount Vernon" is reaching ever greater numbers. So, yes, we will be collecting signatures right across the summer break and want all the help we can get to make the numbers grow. Don't be shy about volunteering your help - just phone 01895 636095. Enjoy the sun while you can!


Joan

The two Herts Hospital Trusts and the two Herts Primary Care Trusts are in the throes of public consultation on proposals to change acute hospital services in Hertfordshire. Public consultation goes on until 1st October and there are 14 public meetings scattered across the county.

One of these meetings was in Watford tonight, in the Pump Theatre which offered plenty of parking, good acoustics for the hard of hearing, lots of consultation documents and smiling NHS staff and an independent Chairman to make sure it was all well conducted. The audience consisted of perhaps a dozen members of the public - not much of a reward for all those who had worked hard to make it happen. Maybe this was simply public apathy, but nothing in the consultation threatens services in the Watford area so there was no cause for a fight to lure the public into the meeting.

The proposal is to have two just two major acute hospitals in Herts with a full A&E service, one in the west at Watford Hosptial, one in the East at either the Lister Hospital in Stevenage or the QEII Hospital in Welwyn Garden City - the Lister is the NHS preference - but that choice is contentious, so maybe public meetings in the east will be more fraught.

All the other hospitals will provide services without A&E facilities, but there will be seven urgent care centre treating perhaps 65% of the patients currently reporting to A&E Departments. Watford Hospital will be enhanced next year with a new Acute Admissions Unit with 110 beds, including 24 side rooms, to deal with the additional strains on its resouces.

Elective surgery will now not be provided in a private sector surgicentre at Hemel Hempstead, as at one time envisaged, because that proved too expensive, but elective surgery will be centralised on either the Hemel or the St Albans site, with the latter preferred because it is more cost effective.

Acute paediatric care will be centralised at Watford Hospital, with 24 hour provision there.

There was plenty of time for questions ranging from patient transport to MRSA. It was interesting and informative. The few people present had the luxury of total attention to their every small issue.

Joan Davis

The June meeting of NHS London covered a lot of ground. Here are just a few snippets of its news.

After the Department of Health's input of £71m from its contingency fund, this SHA managed to claim, virtuously, that it had a surplus of £21m for 2006-07. Such are the vagaries of NHS accounting!

The big unknown at the moment is what Professor Sir Ara Darzi will recommend in his report on "Healthcare for London", due to be launched on 11th July. We await this with interest.

Like all NHS bodies, NHS London is surrounded by targets, most of which it meets but some still elude it, most notably the wait for diagnositc tests does not hit the 13 weeks target, the number of smoking quitters is below target and MRSA is still not going down as fast as it should.

Ravenscourt Hospital is again up for grabs having been the Royal Masonic in the private sector, then in the NHS under its current name and now under negotition to return to the private sector again. The Hammersmith Hospital is currently the site owner.

The future of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital at Stanmore is also uncertain. Having faced rejection of its outline business case to stay on its present site, because the plan was unaffordable, it produced a version that is affordable but that has been rejected because there has not been sufficient consideration of alternative provision of its services at other hospitals, or the option of uprooting the hospital from north London and planting it in SE London instead. Sounds like someone doesn't much like our dear old friend the RNOH!

Joan Davis

6pm, Friday 6th July saw the start of Cancer Research UK's Relay for Life at the Queensmead School, South Ruislip. The Community Voice was invited to attend by the organiser Rose Dalton, Chair of Cancer Research UK. We were provided with a prime location at the entrance to the site with a table and chairs, not that we would have much time to sit down.

The first team, Joan & Donald, arrived at 4pm to set-up and started collecting signatures. While Joan ‘intercepted’ new arrivals I went out on to the field where the participants in the relay were busy setting up their tents for the night. Joan left at 6.30pm for her appointment but we were joined by Peggy Timbrell and Rosemary Steven. About 8pm we were joined by Jenny Stephany. I left the ladies to their task and returned about 9.30pm for the candle lighting and to clear our patch for the night. I got home about 11.30.

The next morning I returned just after 9am to be greeted by Martin Plumber.
We set up our pitch again; overnight someone had taken Joan’s ‘pond stones’ which were used to hold down the tablecloth in the strong wind. Over the day we were joined by Claire Speight, Kerry Goodwin, Don and Anne Ticehurst and their two daughters. The two girls did a sterling job, no one got past them without signing! Arthur Lewis and Linda Clarke joined the team as did Joan, who had just returned having spent the morning at the Pavillions in Uxbridge with Gaynor Brown, where they had a very successful day collecting hundreds of signatures. I dashed home for a brief respite and returned to see the closing ceremony and clear our patch. Joan and I returned home about 10pm.

The results of this effort were that we collected 1,300 signatures. After the 26th July we shall be back in the fray collecting at Tesco Pinner and Watford. Anyone wishing to lend a hand at these sites and on the following Saturday 28th, the Denham Car Boot Sale, please contact Joan on 01895 636095.

Donald