Local Health - Change in the Wind
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| We may get ultrasound... |
Services at Thames Ditton Community Hospital at Emberbrook have been under threat for a number of years. But now there may be some change in the wind. First, though, for those who may be new to this area, a bit of background:
We’re not alone with the problems we have encountered with our Primary Care Trust (the NHS body responsible for most of the health services we use): many community hospitals in the country are concerned about their future and many others have already been lost, particularly over the last 18 months. In the NHS Plan 2000, the White Papers “Keeping NHS Local 2003” and, most recently, “Our Health, Our Care, Our Say,” the government consistently recognises the need to develop community hospital services, including rehabilitation beds such as those provided at Thames Ditton. This is in order to improve delayed discharge figures from the acute hospitals, reduce the need for readmissions due to inadequate after care treatment at home and to provide care closer to home; in the process there should be financial benefits to the health service in moving non-critical care away from the more costly critical care hospitals.
In Thames Ditton at least, we still have four inpatient beds in the NHS wing at Emberbrook Care Centre. This has been achieved with support from all quarters: local people who have written, phoned, complained and generally pestered the PCT as well as the invaluable backing of Elmbridge Borough Councillors from all parties, Surrey County Councillors and our MP, Ian Taylor. The need for the beds in Thames Ditton remains and is now reinforced by the threat to beds at other community hospitals in this area.
Inpatient services have also suffered under PCT cutbacks: outpatient services at Emberbrook Health Centre next door have been steadily if not stealthily depleted. A recent assessment carried out by the Friends has indicated that there are fewer outpatient services in Thames Ditton now than there were in the mid 90’s. So much for ‘Local Care, Local Choice’!
A new Primary Care Trust: Once again there is another restructuring of the NHS: so will we see things change locally? In October a new Primary Care Trust covering the whole of Surrey replaces the East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey Primary Care Trust and four others. The full implications of these developments have yet to be evaluated, but locally we hope that there will be benefit in a greater emphasis on the local provision of primary care health services than we have seen up to now.
Local commissioning of health services: The NHS reorganisation includes the introduction of ‘Practice based commissioning’, a not entirely new concept to the NHS even if some of the details are different. This is enabling the local doctors of Thames Ditton, Weston Green, Hinchley Wood, Claygate, Molesey and Esher together to set up a company to provide GP and other primary care services on contract to the PCT. MEDICS (standing for Molesey, Esher and the Dittons Integrated Care Services) should be established in October subject to the PCT signing the necessary contract. The potential benefits include a major improvement in the speed and accessibility with which a range of services can be accessed by patients.
Under the new system, GPs will hold the funding for the commissioning of services; MEDICS plans to develop and provide locally based services which will be commissioned by GP’s within the area. One of the first services being considered is an ultrasound service, which would be based at Emberbrook Health Centre. Anyone needing this invaluable diagnostic service at present is likely to have an anxious 8 – 10 week wait for the service offered at Kingston Hospital.
The Friends of Thames Ditton Hospital at Emberbrook are delighted to be actively supporting this venture. Funds have been ear-marked for the purchase of the necessary equipment once the service gets the go-ahead. MEDICS is also considering the development of other services at Emberbrook, as well as an increased number of consultants’ outpatients’ clinics, possibly including ENT, General Surgery and Urology.
Good news though this is, we are still dependent upon the PCT including Thames Ditton Hospital at Emberbrook in their long-term strategy. So, before the present East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey PCT disappears, the Friends have also taken action requesting the assistance of Surrey County Council’s Health Select Committee (the local statutory body which oversees the activities of the PCT) to ensure that Thames Ditton Hospital at Emberbrook is retained in the PCT’s Local Delivery Plan when they hand over to the new Surrey PCT – as indeed it was when EEMS PCT took over from their predecessors.
Karen Randolph Watson
Chair,Friends of Thames Ditton Hospital at Emberbrook