Archive for July, 2010

LAY MEMBER’S HEADLINE FEEDBACK FROM THE NHS WANDSWORTH PROFESSIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (PEC) MEETING WITH THE MANAGEMENT TEAM ON 13 JULY 2010

These headlines are for rapid briefing purposes about the lay/user issues arising in the meeting. It is not a full report from the meeting.

PEC and PCT Board papers are available on the NHS Wandsworth website: www.wandsworth.nhs.uk   contact  Sandra Allingham on 020 8812 7740 or e-mail sandra.allingham@wpct.nhs.uk

The contents of this briefing note are for information only and are solely the responsibility of Andrew Craig, PEC Lay Member, including errors and omissions. They do not necessarily represent the views of the PEC or NHS Wandsworth.

Items for Discussion

Performance Area Presentation – Screening

Breast screening: The target is for 70% of women aged 53-70 to have received screening for the early detection of breast cancer over the last three years. In 2010/11, the target will be extended to include all women aged 47–73. 

Local performance was consistently underachieving (63%) compared to other sector PCTs (London average 65.1%; Islington 66% highest).  Issues of  venues, sites and times and list cleaning were being pursued to improve this.  Language issues are sighificant factor. A pictorial version of the invitation was being trialled.

There is significant patient opt out and also professional doubt about effectiveness in early detection and intervention for breast cancer.  This could be an example of chasing targets not in the patients’ best interest and spurious in terms of improving the health of the population.   Not part of current GP contract, so GPs less likely to be asked about it than cervical screening.  And patient information usually not transferred to EMIS patient records. 

General view that changes won’t take local performance up to 70%.  Breast screens done privately  (probably about 1%) not counted for the target as not quality assured. 

Cervical screening:  The 2010/11 target is for 80% of women aged 25-49 to have had a technically adequate smear within the last 3.5 years and 80% of women aged 50-64 to have had a technically adequate smear within the last 5 years.

Local performance (68% and 74.5% for the respective groups) improved by 2% this year, but consistent underperformance issues are the same as for breast screening.  Data reconciliation has revealed large inconsistencies in patient lists ( reflecting our highly mobile and diverse population).

For both types of screening, PEC agreed that there must be much more engagement with the target community to find out what kind of service they would use and where it should be offered.

My conclusion from this is that the NHS is underperforming because it is trying to promote uptake of a product that many customers don’t recognise as something they need and should want. Women called for screening are not “patients” and are unlikely to respond to top down services that take no account of language, culture, convenience and other consumer factors.  We do not know what kind of service women would like to have and until there is reliable user-led intelligence, it will not be possible to commission something more appropriate.  Tinkering with the existing model is futile and wastes resources.  Getting this right presents a big opportunity for the NHS, Wandsworth Council  and Third Sector bodies to work together in an engagement exercise with a public health objective. This fits the new White Paper’s approach to public health. It is astonishing that data collection at practice level is still so fragmented.  

Naitonal GP Survey – Practice Nurses

Wandsworth’s results for patient satisfaction with access to and services from nurses in general practice are getting worse.  PEC agreed the final version of a practice nurse developmehnt strategy aimed at improving the situation. This includes better performance measures than the national survey questions. Performance data is not understood in practices and by individual nurses in the practices and this must be remedied.   

Nursing outside of hospital remains disjointed and nurses employed by GPs are professionally isolated.  The new practice nurse strategy will help, but it cannot overcome a problem whose cause is inherent in the way these practitioners are employed by GPs as private businesses.  We need a primary care nursing service that is not just confined to GP practices.  In my view the practice nurse task model is a dinosaur and impedes innovation. An alterantive is to employ primary care nursing staff through Healthcare Federations as legal entities and not through individual practices and arrange professional development and leadership across Wandsworth. Another option to consider is the  “chambers” approach where nurse employees own their own business as a mutual society and contract services to practices (and to GP commissioning consortia in future).  That would require a solution to the NHS pensions issue but there are strong signals from government that this model would be supported.  

Quarter Four GP Survey Results

PEC discussed the access to primary care results.  London and all South West London sector PCTs are underperforming in most areas.  Wandsworth is poor in practice nurse and  out of hours areas.   Government has announced that the specific target of seeing a GP within 48 hours will be abolished.

Because of the importance of providing information to patients to enable informed choices, PEC agreed that this information should be put on the PCT website in a clear and accessible way relating to individual practices.  This would enable people to choose a GP practice or switch from a poorly performing one.  PEC also agreed that the PCT should ask patients if this was the kind of data they wanted, what will they do with it,  whether it helped them make choices and whether they would recommend others to use it.    

 Implementing Coalition Government Policy

The Chief Executive provided information based on a recent briefing with NHS London and London PCT CEOs.  The following issues were highlighted:

The mismatch between having to achieve management savings quickly compared to the requirements of the legislative timetable to have changes completed by 2013 is a serious complicating factor and will make the PCT’s job more difficult in managing change and retaining its skilled staff to enable the transition to GP commissioning and closer work with the Council.

Commissioning consortia will be statutory organisations with an accountable officer (CEO) and geographical responsibilities.  Consortia will be in shadow form from from 4/11.  No mention of Boards in the accountable structure (consortia CEOs will be accountable upwards to the NHS CEO in England).  

Re-negotiation of GP contact will be simultaneous with setting up of consortia.  Providers will take most assets with them required for provision of services (et Queen Mary’s Hospital, health centres);  only assets requried for commissioning would remain with GP consortia.

The NHS Commissioning Board from 2012 will commission all primary care and maternity care.  GP consortia will not commission GP (primary)  care, for obvious conflict of interest reasons, but would take an interest in quality and effectiveness (how this would happen has not yet been specified).  Some SHAs will turn into offices of the NHS Board by 2012.  

Public health,  wellbeing and health improvement – will essentially transfer to local government  as a core cabinet level responsibility to be integrated with social care. In London this could mean the Mayor taking control of them.  Directors of Public Health would be employed by Councils not the NHS.  Overview and scrutiny arrangements will change.  London would have a public health focus.

Healthwatch nationally and locally would relate to the Care Quality Commission and absorb the LINk.  Local Healthwatch would be Council funded and accountable.   See the diagram at the end of this report.

Monitor would become the universal healthcare economic regulator.  All NHS Trusts would have to become Foundation Trusts or merge with viable FTs. Private patient income cap will be removed.  Social enterprise and employee ownership models are being heavily promoted and incentivised.

Independent health care sector will play a role mainly in market testing rather than mainlyin service provision.  

Key documents for the White Paper Liberating the NHS launched on 12/7are grouped on the Department of Health website and are essential reading www.dh.gov.uk/en/Healthcare/LiberatingtheNHS/index.htm 

 David Nicholson, CEO of NHS England, letter to CEOs of NHS organisations 13 July outlining stages and pace of transition www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_117406.pdf  stresses  four key change principles: subsidiarity, co-production,    clinical ownership and leadership, and system alignment.  The message is the need to understand the NHS as a system of services linked by common principles of access, equity and quality, not a monolithic organisation of buildings and 1m+ employees.

NHS England Governance Model in White Paper Liberating the NHS July 2010

 Next Meeting of the NHS Wandsworth Board: Wednesday 28^th July 2010 in the Richmond Room, Queen Mary’s Hospital, commencing at 09h30.

 Next Meeting of the PEC: 09h30 on Tuesday, 14^th September 2010.

If you are a Carer and want to advise the new Government about what help and support is important to you to live your life, now is your chance to speak up.

See our poster for the two events on the 8th and 16th September 

If you are interested in attending, please call Daniel at the Wandsworth Carer’s Centre on 0208 675 0811

Topics include an update on LINks work over the past 12 months and the work plan for the coming year, a discussion on the implications of the NHS White Paper, plus an opportunity to take part in local consultation activities.

This meeting is open to anyone with an interest in local health and social care services, including voluntary groups, service users, carers and the wider community.

Speakers at the meeting:

• Roy Benjamin, Chair of LINk Merton on our work and priorities

• Peter Jenkinson, Trust Secretary at St Georges Hospital Foundation on plans to create a foundation Trust

• Helen Bainbrige, NHS Sutton and Merton on the new PCT equalities scheme

The meeting will take place at Grenfell Housing and Training, 16-20 Kingston Road, South Wimbledon, SW19 1JZ.

To book your place, call 8685 1771 or e-mail justin@mvsc.co.uk

A meeting for managers of organisations providing any type of care and support for adults will take place at Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development Agency on 17th August 2010 at 10am. This is an opportunity to discuss the switch to personalised services, implications for provider organisations and opportunities to find joint solutions with other providers.

There has been a huge amount of interest in this meeting and there is now a waiting list. If you would like to register your interest please contact Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development Agency on 020 8875 2846.  

Wandsworth Voluntary Sector Development Agency, 170 Garratt Lane, SW18 4DA

Please see poster for more details

Wandsworth LINk has an ever growing number of people who represent the LINk at various strategic committees/ Boards and steering groups. 

Jeremy Ambache attended the Adult Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 8th June 2010. Jeremy reported that the second phase of the Mental Health project was agreed and on his suggestion, Health Care/ NHS will be added to the Corporate Business Plan with regard to the development of Safeguarding. Jeremy also asked whether there are any plans for the Drug Action Team to work with poly-systems, he was told that at present there is no explicit agreement to work with GPs and poly-systems in the Drug Action Team Plan. It was also decided at the meeting that the plan to improve Information services was agreed and a further report will come back: this includes the Careline contract ceasing at the end of September, but a continued service in-house in the immediate term.

Tune in tomorrow, 22nd July, at 10.30am to the Number 10 website to see the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley field questions on NHS reforms.

And to get you in the mood, see this link to the Secretary of State’s testimony before the Health Select Committee yesterday, 20th July.

Confused about Personal Budgets? Have buringing questions you want answered? 

Come along to Wandsworth LINk’s next open meeting on 19^th July 2010, 6 p.m at the Platt Centre Putney,  the subject of the meeting will be PERSONAL BUDGETS.

Carol Barton, Wandsworth Council’s Transformation Programme Manager will be at the meeting and this is the perfect opportunity to have your questions answered, we want our members and local people to determine what Carol talks about, not the other way around. To ensure that this happens we’re asking that, if possible, you submit your questions to us before the meeting, especially if you can’t make the meeting but still have opinions you want expressed, and questions you want answered.

MAC share their views on Andrew Lansley’s Health White Paper…

Liberating the NHS the new Health White Paper on “equity and excellence” could turn out to be, in Chris Ham’s prophetic words today, the “biggest organisational upheaval in the health service, probably, since its inception”.  This is about England only of course: the contrast with the other three countries in these islands will now be even starker.

Shaping the new order

Speaking in the Commons this afternoon as the document was published, Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley said his objectives were putting patients right at the heart of their care, putting clinicians at the heart of decisions about services and achieving health outcomes comparable of our neighbours.

We are to have an outcomes framework identifying what the health service should achieve and it will be up to the professionals (in collaboration with the public and patients if Lansley is serious about “no decision about me without me”) to say how it should be achieved in each part of the country.

Some of the other highlights of the new order include:

• A payments system that acts as a driver for quality, safety and integrated care not just a reward for activity (very welcome)
• Decision making as close to patients a possible, including patients with long term conditions having budgets (we hope for health AND social care combined) to make real choices about their care.
• Real, local accountability: Local Authorities will agree local strategies to integrate NHS, public health and social care together.  (fine, assuming councillors rise to the challenge and there isn’t likely to be extra money for cash-strapped authorities)
• Consortia will commission NHS services in line with the local health plan agreed with the local Council; this is how GPs will lead bottom up redesign of services:“GPs are senior professionals in public service and paid well for that.” No opting out.
• Patient choice over treatment options, including the consultant-led team that treats them, based on a torrent of information to guide informed choices
• Choice of GP practice and  power to control our own patient records. (no practice boundaries)
• Patient voices will be heard and acted upon by Healthwatch as a national body working through local healthwatch incorporating the current LINks (across health and social care which is essential)
• An English NHS “liberated from command and control”, including all NHS Trusts to be Foundation Trusts with power in the hands of their employees and users: “Our ambition is to create the largest and most vibrant social enterprise sector in the world.” (could help with getting assets off the government’s balance sheet and sort the pensions issue too)
• Any willing provider in the health care marketplace, provided they deliver to NHS standards and prices
• A more powerful Monitor as economic regulator and CQC as the guardian of safety and quality standards
• The NHS Commissioning Board holding the national GP contract, managing performance, allocating resources to commissioning consortia and leading specialised commissioning (big job all of that, any applicants on the horizon?)

Liberation is a double edged sword

MAC’s initial reaction to all of this – our deeper thoughts are for later –  is that what Mr Lansley is proposing  - and the devil will be in the detail of the coming consultations and the autumn Health Bill – could certainly be “liberating” both in an innovative but also in a chaotic sense (think Pandora’s box)  - and probably at the same time.  The phrase “constructive discomfort” comes to mind.

But there’s a catch. The NHS in England must save recurrently some £20bn by 2014 - “every penny saved will be a penny reinvested for the benefit of patient care” Mr Lansley said. That takes many steady eyes and hands on the job and some well placed voices are wondering if now is the right time to pursue wholesale root and branch change which will be very distracting in our largest and most expensive public service? Managers fashioning lifeboats for themselves may have concerns other than achieving efficiency savings.

Cromwellian thoroughness and speed

The reforms to commissioning and accountability aim to be Cromwellian in thoroughness and speed.  Andrew Lansley seems to be taking Tony Blair’s approach further and faster than anyone thought possible, but the difference is there seems to be a map this time.  Our modern day “major generals” (aka Strategic Health Authorities)  are being marched off to the Tower awaiting termination  - or as Mr Lansley termed it “disempowerment of bureaucracies” – by 2012, to be followed by PCTs by April 2013.

As we move towards then, will the crowd be shouting “behold the heads of tyrants” as we breath the free and pure air of GP commissioning, or will we just be too distracted to care?  And will there be anyone left in PCT land by then to turn off the lights, cancel the milk and put the cat out?

2 Comments

Filed under Foundation Trusts, Local Involvement Network, Management & Innovation, NHS, News posts, Public Involvement, Social Care, commissioning, social enterprise
Tags:

Comments

2 Responses to “Liberation root and branch style”

Caroline Millar says: July 13, 2010 at 10:19 amI have real concerns about GP commissioning not relieved in any way by watching the debate on Newsnight yesterday where the panel of around ten people contained no-one who represented the patient voice – although of course several GPs who were utterly convinced that they knew better than anyone what patients needed and wanted. We have to stop this persistent conflation of what GPs think is good for their patients with what patients themselves want. They are not necessarily the same thing. How do GPs know what patients want/think/experience? How many GP practices have patient groups – and where they exist do they make a difference? Every time you ask patients what they want they come back with the same issues. Two of the biggest issues are evening opening and rude receptionists yet somehow nothing ever seems to get done about these particular wants. So with the GPs in charge will patients necessarily be better off than they are now? It certainly is by no means a foregone conclusion!Peter Westland says: July 13, 2010 at 2:25 pmwell it is early days but it would be nice to know whether they mean “commissioning” or “procurement” and at what level in this “new” two tier arrangement the “commissioning” will be done….ie the analysis, horizon scanning, planning services for the future3. This will no doubt be placed with the “top” brainbox end of a consortium…with people imported from PCT’s and SHA’s OR that lot will be abandoned in favour of intellectuals from the USA or even Price Waterhouse. Whatever…it will look a bit like a PCT except it will not have the usual governance by retired captains of industry, accountants and estate agents….or will it. Also I can’t make out how the accountability will work. And Finally …Public Health to Local Authorities….some of us have argued for this for 20 years…but how will this now relate to the new NHS. Plenty of work for you Andrew and colleagues….

The Papers for our next Executive Meeting on the 19th July are now available, just click on the link below

July 19th LINk Executive Meeting

Voices is a action research project which Wandsworth Adult Social Services and London South Bank University has backed for a year to try and establish service users experiences during this time of change in social care.

Wandsworth ASSD is interested in hearing people’s experiences of receiving a Personal Budget and hopes to gain insight of this experience from the service users point of view……can we bring the power of the user experience to bear particularly at this time of change??

The action research project hopes to find a group of eight to fifteen service users and/or their carers, from different client groups to keep diaries and records of their experiences, which will then be shared with other service users and staff in Adult Social Services to help us to learn from their experiences.

Nina Back, Voices Project Officer

phone: (020) 8871 8077

email: nback@wandsworth.gov.uk

Voices Project poster