An explantion of Mid Yorks NHS Trust Clinical Services Strategy?

I am a GP Board member of NHS Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and from April 2013 the CCG will be commissioning (ie buying) hospital services for patients across Wakefield District. Our biggest provider of specialist hospital services is Mid Yorks NHS Trust and they are currently going through a consultation exercise about changing the way they deliver services. On Wednesday evening this week I went to South Elmsall Town Council to explain these changes. It seems odd that I was their doing the talking but the CCG will have agreed these changes and will be leading on consultation with patients about these changes. I was talking about what the changes are, why their needs to change and some of the challenges these changes will bring.

It seems perverse that only 18 months after two brand new hospitals at Pinderfields and Pontefract were opened we are talking about major changes but services cannot continue as they are currently configured for two main reasons.

Firstly they are not clinically sustainable for a number of reasons
  • The trust has been challenged by a national NHS quality organisation that three services will not be viable in the long term the way they are organised at the moment (A&E, paediatrics and obstetrics)
  • There have been difficulties getting enough middle grade doctors to ensure that there are senior doctors available (A&E, paediatrics, obstetrics and surgery)
  • Increasing specialisation in hospital services leads to better results for patients but in order to get more specialisation services need to be merged.

And secondly Mid Yorks is not currently financially sustainable in the way that services are configured at the moment. The Trust is planning a £26 million deficit in 2012/13 and the Department of Health will not allow deficits like this to continue without major changes to the way services are organised.

There are two options out for consultation at the moment:

Option 1
Under this option there is centralisation of obstetrics, paediatrics and colo rectal surgery at Pinderfields. This will achieve clinical sustainability in all of the key areas.

Option 2
This is the same as Option 1 but with some more radical proposals: A&E at Dewsbury and Pontefract change to an Emergency Care Unit, acute medicine and acute surgery are all centralised at Pinderfields. This will achieve clinical, performance and financial sustainability

Further details about the options can be found on Mid Yorks NHS Trust website - click here.

In order for these changes to achieve the desired effect there are challenges for the hospital to increase its efficiency and productivity but there are also challenges to General Practice. The challenges to General Practice are to help reduce the number of patients going to A&E who could be seen in Practice by ensuring that patients know they can contact us first and we have enough appointments for patients to book into.

I was at South Elmsall to explain what was happening and to get some feedback about people thought about the two options. If you want to feedback and have your say click here to email the CCG Communications Team






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