Striving for Excellence - Our Future NHS
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Striving for Excellence – Our Future NHS
Complete the Online Questionnaire
The people of Gloucestershire deserve a Primary Care Trust that is ambitious in the pursuit of excellence in health – making sure that services are sensitive to the needs of the individual, are accessible and encourage and maintain people’s independence.
We also want to make real progress with our partners in supporting people to become healthier and to increase their well-being wherever they happen to live in the county.
Last year, over 500 people helped us to develop our commitments and priorities through community workshops, on-line surveys and special conversation events with young people, service users and carers.
What Did You Tell Us?
You want……..
Improved Access to Services
- shorter waiting times for all services, including community based services for adults and for children, like podiatry, occupational therapy and physiotherapy
- to wait as short a time as possible when you need an operation e.g. cataract surgery, hip and knee operations
- improved access to screening services
- shorter waiting times for hearing aid repairs and hearing aid fitting
- better access to NHS dentistry.
Care Closer to Home
- greater investment in mental health services
- Improved services for people with Long Term Conditions e.g. diabetes, lung disease in the community
- more money to be spent on local services such as community nursing
- development of services for people reaching the end of their lives in the patient’s own home and in the community
- greater support for people who are carers.
Improving Health and Well-being
- tackling alcohol and drug misuse, improving diet and increasing levels of physical activity to be seen as priorities
more help for people to give up smoking.
We also receive valuable feedback from patient’s about their experiences of care through our complaints team, the patient advice and liaison service, community and voluntary groups, the expert patient programme and local and national patient surveys.
Patients and members of the public are most frequently concerned about issues such as cleanliness, dignity in care, speed of access to services and care and courtesy.
What Are We Doing To Make Services Better And Improve Health?
The NHS in Gloucestershire is continuing to work hard to improve services and make progress on the priorities that we developed last year with local communities. We are committed to meeting all of these commitments and here are some of the developments to date:
Improved Access to Services
- Reducing overall waiting times for patients referred by their GP for a hospital operation. In April 2007, 55% of patients were treated within 18 weeks and in April 2008, the figure was 86%. We are working towards a maximum waiting time of 13 weeks by December 2008
- Reducing occupational therapy assessment waiting times for children from an average of 24 months in September 2007 to an average of 5 months in April 2008
- Reducing waiting times for cataract surgery. Patients in Gloucestershire now wait a maximum of four months from being referred to having their operation. This will be reduced to 4 weeks by March 2009
- The purchasing of additional NHS funded surgery for people waiting for hip and knee operations and working towards a maximum 8 week wait for Gloucestershire patients. Some providers are already able to meet the 8 week wait target
- Extension of Breast Screening for women aged between 50 and 70 years old. In total, around 52,000 women are now screened annually in Gloucestershire
- Reducing waiting times for the assessment and fitting of hearing aids. In March 2007, there were nearly 6,000 patients waiting longer than 6 weeks for an assessment with 3,500 waiting for more than 52 weeks. At the end of March 2008, there were no patients waiting over 6 weeks. Plans are in place to meet the 4 week maximum wait target
- Opening two new dental centres last year. We will be opening three more this year
Care Closer to Home
- Investment in Mental Health services including development of crisis resolution teams providing intensive support to service users. By the end of March 2008, the service had treated over 1,000 new patients at home rather than in hospital. Community Mental Health Teams have also been expanded and money has been spent on extended training sessions for carers of people with dementia
- Improving community nursing services for people with long term conditions, including specialist diabetes nurses and the first phase of a community nursing service for people with lung disease
- Supporting more people to receive end of life care in the place of their choice. This includes joining up hospice care at home with district nursing
- A more co-ordinated approach to end of life care including access to specialist advice 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- A review which will lead to improvements in bereavement services
- Increased funding (around £150,000) for respite to support Carers across the county, including young carers
Improving Health and Well-being
- Funding from the PCT and County Council to support the Healthy Schools Programme with increasing physical activity a priority
- Funding of £150,000 for community clinics to help people with alcohol problems
- A telemarketing campaign to provide information and offer support to people who are ready to give up smoking.
Keeping Patients Safe
We know that cleanliness and safe services are very important to local patients, and the NHS in Gloucestershire has been working hard to build on the downward trend in healthcare associated infections.
This includes a programme of ‘deep cleaning’, hygiene training and education, the introduction of staff champions to encourage good practice and inspection teams.
A key priority this year is to reduce cases of MRSA and C.difficle in our hospitals.
Our Future Health Challenges
People living in Gloucestershire generally experience good health – life expectancy at birth is above average and death rates from major killers like cancer and heart disease are below the England average. However, a minority experience significantly poorer health.
Key Challenges - Key Facts
The county’s population aged 65 and over is projected to increase more than half between now and 2029, from 107,000 to 166,000. Over the next 20 years, projections suggest that the overall number of people with dementia in Gloucestershire is likely to increase by 46%.
Locally, life expectancy at birth in the most deprived areas of the county is 7.5 years shorter when compared to the most affluent areas.
Suicide rates in Gloucestershire are higher in areas of deprivation. Rates of self harm seem to be increasing in Gloucestershire, especially in the most deprived areas. In 2006, there were 1,176 hospital admissions for self harm across the county.
In Gloucestershire, the two local authority areas to have smoking rates higher than the national average (of 26%) are the urban areas of Cheltenham and Gloucester, which are home to some of our most deprived communities.
In Gloucestershire, about a quarter of children aged between 4 and 5 years old are either overweight or obese. This rises to about a third of 10 to 11 year olds.
In Gloucestershire, over 60% of the adult population are living with a long term condition.
We are working closely with local partners in Gloucestershire to develop a ‘Health Improvement and Community Well-being Strategy’ for the county.
The strategy will help to make sure that health services and opportunities for healthy living are available to all and aims to achieve significant improvements in health and well-being over a ten year period.
In considering national and local priorities, including feedback from our conversations last year, our key priorities will include:
- Tackling the rise in obesity (particularly childhood obesity)
- Reducing harm from alcohol
- Helping people to give up smoking (particularly targeting services at those people who have been less likely to quit in the past)
- Keep people active in older age.
NHS South West has also published ‘Ambitions for the Future’, its draft plans for improving health and health services across the region. We will want to reflect these priorities in our local plans for Gloucestershire.
How You Can Help
We want your help in developing our priorities and commitments further for the future.
We want to make sure that we have got it right for people in Gloucestershire and that when we take decisions about improving services in the future, we are thinking about what you have told us you need and want.
We want to hear from people of all ages, from all walks of life and from all backgrounds and would be grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete the question form below and return it to us by 1 September, 2008.
Complete the Online Questionnaire
Printable Large Print Version *(pdf)
