The Mountwood Surgery at The Mount Vernon Site

The Mountwood Surgery opened for business on the 18th June 2007. It is situated at the entrance to Mount Vernon Hospital off the Rickmansworth Road, on land purchased from The Hillingdon Hospital Trust. The Surgery was officially opened by Nick Hurd MP for Ruislip – Northwood on the 12th October 2007. It supplements the overcrowded ‘Shackman Practice’ in Northwood.
The tour of the surgery was conducted by Max Black, Practice Manager.
This video is a first for our website and it is hope we will become more proficient in future. The limitations being 100MB clips. We hope you find the video, in two parts, informative.

Donald

To play the video - TURN UP YOUR SOUND, CLICK THE 'PLAY' BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM LEFT OF THE VIDEO SCREEN. The video will start in a few seconds. Enjoy!

Part One

Part Two

Local hospitals fare badly for services and use of resources

A few days ago the Healthcare Commission published ratings for quality of services and use of resources for all hospital trusts in England on a scale of weak, fair, good or excellent. Local hospitals fared poorly. Hillingdon Hospital Trust scored fair for services and good for resources – disappointing because this was a reversal of last year’s scores and that Trust had hoped to achieve two good ratings. North West London Hospitals Trust scored good for services - but only weak for resources. West Herts Hospitals Trust scored weak for both assessments – and was one of only four trusts in the country to be given that lowest possible rating for the second year running.

Following publication of the above results, David Law resigned as Chief Executive of West Herts Hospitals Trust. It is particularly sad for him that in the same week his Trust received approval for the £38 million redevelopment work at Watford Hospital with which he was so closely associated - this includes a new Acute Admissions Unit, expansion of the A&E Department and a jump from an eight to nineteen bed Intensive Treatment Unit, all of which were proposed as part of his package to combat the underlying financial problems that had dogged the Trust for many years. He was in post for three tumultuous and difficult years, following a succession of other Chief Executives who similarly failed to overcome the long-standing problems of this Trust.

There was more gloom for Primary Care Trusts, which were assessed with different criteria for the same possible ratings. Hillingdon PCT was rated fair on services and weak on resources. Harrow PCT was fair for both assessments. West Herts PCT was the only trust in the country to be rated weak on both counts.

The only rays of sunshine came from Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital (a rich specialist trust) which achieved two good ratings and Central & North West London Foundation Trust (assessed differently because it provides mental health services) which managed excellent for services and good for resources.

We all want good services and want heads to roll if services or use of money is poor. However it is conspicuous that there are problems across a swathe of trusts in our part of the world. Are they all badly managed - or is there an underlying cause? Some areas currently receive twice as much money per head of population as others! Could the funding formula possibly be a factor in our local woes??

Joan

Next Meeting of the Community Voice - November 2007

As usual, our meeting on Thursday 1st November will be held in the Post Graduate Centre, Mount Vernon Hospital. Doors open at 7.15pm and the meeting starts promptly at 7.45pm.

Entering the hospital via Gate 1, off the Rickmansworth Road, there is plenty of parking in the main car park, which is only a few steps from the meeting room.

Our speaker will be Claire Murdoch, Chief Executive of the Central & North West London Foundation Trust, speaking about mental health services. This is her first visit to us, so we will be particularly pleased to welcome her.

Joan

Highlights from West Herts Hospitals

Infections: The West Herts Board met in public on 11th October, the day the news broke about 50 deaths from clostridium difficile at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospitals. Everyone was clearly concerned to prove that this Trust has dealt appropriately with both MRSA and clostridium difficile.

These infections are routinely discussed at Board meetings and the Trust’s action plans were found acceptable by the visiting national MRSA team. The Trust has set up isolation wards, it screens patients, it has appointed specialist nurses, it is already washing beds and is installing a car-wash type facility for more thorough bed cleaning, and it is using peroxide nebulisers for deep cleaning. Failure of staff to wash between patients, if proved, leads to a formal written warning, followed by dismissal for a second offence.

However, despite all this, the Trust had 12 cases of MRSA bacteraemia in the three months ending August, and in August alone 91 patients were identified with MRSA, but only 13% were believed to have acquired it in the Trust – so 87% acquired it elsewhere!

In August there were also 57 cases of clostridium difficile and this infection led to eight deaths in the Trust in the last six months. To combat this, the antibiotics associated with increased risk of this infection are being restricted, as are protein-pump-inhibitors, which also increase the risk.

Finances: The Trust is breaking even financially but it is around £3m behind plan on its target to produce £5m surplus by the end of the year. If this is to be achieved every department in the Trust will have to make savings.

Foundation Trust status: The Trust expects to apply for Foundation Trust status in Wave 10, but to achieve this it must first improve its financial position and reach performance and other targets. If it does not succeed it will be taken over by another Trust or be broken up – so it MUST rise to this challenge!

Survey Scores: In recent PEAT surveys all three sites were rated acceptable or above for food, cleanliness and privacy/dignity. Steamplicity food was proving popular and welcome at Watford General Hospital, assisting it to achieve a rating of “Good”

.................................Watford General Hospital

Acute services review: Three common factors in responses were:
i) Concerns about location – everyone wants services local to themselves
ii) Concerns about care – the Urgent Care Centre at Hemel Hempstead / diagnostics / intermediate care / post hospital care
iii) Transport and access

The full business case for the proposed improvements at Watford Hospital including the Acute Admissions Unit has been approved but final confirmation will be needed from the East of England Strategic Health Authority before the Trust can proceed.

The Trust is in discussion with Watford Council about the possibility of 400 car parking spaces on the old power station site. The proposal is to tarmac the area and introduce security lighting.

Joan

Community Voice Petition - Visits a New Venue

On Saturday 6th October, two members of The Community Voice broke new ground by attending a Reunion for ex-students from schools in India and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as it was called in those far off days.

Joan Davis, Chairman of Community Voice, was a guest of the Chairman of the Besian Reunion, one Donald Edwards, Publicity officer for The Community Voice.

Only 56 signatures were collected, but the other guests were too busy eating a 3 course curry feast, talking to their long lost friends and dancing to good music ( volume regulated ) by Black Velvet.

Donald

Snippets of news from our October meeting

A new Chief Executive has been appointed to Harrow PCT - Sarah Crowther comes from East & North Herts Hospitals Trust, where she was Deputy Chief Executive. We wish her well.

.........................................Paul Strickland Scanner Centre

Roger Sale, long-standing friend of the Community Voice, has retired as Director of the Paul Strickland Scanner Centre. He will be sadly missed. Margaret Sullivan, his successor, takes up the reins at an exciting time. The Scanner Centre is about to install an advanced CT scanner and early next year it is getting an additional PET / CT scanner – all achieved with public donations.

Paradigm Housing has awarded £1000 to Community Voice! This will pay out-of-pocket expenses to Hillingdon residents who travel on our business and allow Hillingdon residents who cannot travel by public transport to come to our meetings. So volunteers can help us without digging deep into their own pockets. No excuse now for not volunteering! Let us know if you can help – there is no shortage of jobs! Wherever you live the same reimbursement rules apply. We want volunteers from all areas.

Central North West London Foundation Trust wants feedback on the mental health services it provides in Harrow and Hillingdon – both good and bad reports are welcome. Martin Plummer represents us to the Trust on these issues. ‘Phone him on 0208 573 1790 to give him feedback in strict confidence, which he will pass on to the Trust.

...............................................................Harefield Hospital

Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital has a vacancy for a Non- Executive Director. We have the relevant application form.

.........................................Petition Launch - 15th March 2007

The Community Voice petition to “Save Cancer Services at Mount Vernon Hospital” has over 75,000 signatures and is still growing! Time is running out, so get stray petition forms back without delay.

We responded to the West Herts public consultation on its acute health services. Now we await the expected review of Herts cancer services and hope our huge petition will make it abundantly clear that local people want the Cancer Centre to stay exactly where it is - at Mount Vernon!

Harrow Council is being taken to Judicial Review about its withdrawal of support for care services . We will watch this with great interest. From the patient’s point of view health care and social care are equally important in providing a good quality of life. Other Councils will be watching closely too, so this review will have impact way beyond Harrow

...........................................David McVittie, CEO Hillingdon Hospital

Our October speakers were David McVittie, CEO Hillingdon Hospital and Davina Baptiste. As always, David McVittie was a fascinating speaker – he updated us on building plans at both Hillingdon and Mount Vernon Hospitals and talked about Foundation Trust plans. Davina Baptiste outlined the national bowel cancer screening programme. More details about all these issues are available on request.

Next Community Voice meeting is on Thursday 1st November - 7.45pm in the PGC Centre, Mount Vernon. Claire Murdoch, CEO, Central North West London Foundation Trust will speak on mental health issues.

Joan

North West London Hospitals Trust Board, 26 Sept

This note gives highlights of the meeting.

It was reported that the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), comprising St Mary’s Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital and Imperial College has been approved by the Secretary of State and comes formally into being on 1st October.

The future management of the Elderly Care Services at Northwick Park was discussed. Currently some of these are run by Brent and Harrow PCTs but it is intended to transfer the service to the hospital next April. Discussions on this are in progress at present. It is only the management of the service that is to be changed, not the service itself.

The Brent Birth Centre at CMH is severely underused. It has a capacity of some 1,500 births per year but only attracts about 300 women per year. So it loses a lot of money. There is to be a consultation, from October to December, that the centre should be closed and its services transferred to Northwick Park.

Cleanliness and Infection Control was the subject of a group of papers, including the report of a DoH Improvement Team Visit. “Must try harder” was the general thrust of all this. The NHS initiatives include a stricter 'dress code', no doctors' white coats and staff in touch with patients should be 'bare below the elbow'. There were comments regarding the reluctance of staff to wash their hands and how this can be changed.

The Darzi report, A Framework for Action was mentioned only briefly. Although the implementation of that report will entail major changes for the hospitals by transferring several services to more local sites there was no information available about the expected changes at the hopital. The Board is waiting for the end of the consultation period (November to February) to find what the PCTs will wish to commission.

Paul Samet