'We are acting to safeguard local health services for the future'
30/05/06
The Chief Executive of West Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust, Stephen Golledge said today that he understood the strength of feeling locally, but said that the NHS wanted to work with local people to look to the future and explore options for a new community health facility in the Forest of Dean.
The PCT maintains that the Dilke Memorial Hospital is not a suitable building for modern healthcare. Although it believes patient care is of a high standard, the building is reaching the end of its life span.
The space does not meet the standards expected of a 21 st century hospital and maintenance costs alone are expected to be in the region of half a million pounds for the coming year.
In order to safeguard community hospital services in the Forest, the PCT will explore in the longer term the development of a community health facility on a new site in the Forest of Dean.
A new facility would be more efficient to run and offer purpose built accommodation. Some of the existing GP and health centre accommodation in the Forest of Dean also has maintenance and space issues and new premises could also provide a solution for this.
This new health facility could provide a range of local services such as primary care, diagnostics, minor operative procedures, day services and outpatients and intermediate care beds to provide rehabilitation for patients. It could also support closer working between health and social care professionals for the benefit of service users.
As a first step under the proposals, within the next six to twelve months, Dilke Memorial Hospital would close, but the PCT has stressed that even in the interim, the vast majority of patients would continue to receive services locally.
The PCT is currently exploring alternative sites for outpatient and outpatient therapy services to be provided in the local area. Some of these services would be able to relocate to Lydney.
A Minor Injuries and Illness Unit and Out of Hours primary care centre would still exist at the Lydney and District Hospital site. This is 8 miles away from the Dilke Memorial Hospital.
Patients would also be able to access the Out of Hours primary care centre or accident and emergency services at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
GP services will continue to be provided in the North Forest and GP practices can also deal with a range of minor illness and injuries within surgery opening hours.
The NHS locally is continuing to improve the management of a patient’s treatment so that they stay in hospital only for the time that they really need that level of care and can return home as quickly as possible with increased support if this is required.
The NHS will provide additional services tailored to the needs of individuals, both at home and in local clinics. Treatment and rehabilitation services, such as community nursing and occupational and physiotherapy, will be available and complemented by the existing local authority services such as home care and equipment and adaptations.
However, patients from across the Forest of Dean would still be able to access inpatient services at Lydney and those that need a higher level of care would be treated at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
In the longer term, the PCT would anticipate the closure of Lydney and District Hospital as soon as the new community health facility can be developed.
Chief Executive of West Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust, Stephen Golledge said:
“Exploring options for a brand new community health facility and a continuing commitment to developing services available from GP premises and in people’ own home would support our aim of providing a wide range of health and social care services for Forest patients into the future.”
“We appreciate that this is an extremely difficult time for our staff. I am particularly keen to ensure that we support those staff that would be most directly affected. We would make every effort to relocate staff to alternative roles and would provide training and development opportunities wherever possible.”
Notes To Editors
NHS organisations are required to pay off current deficits and balance their books in 2006/07. For Gloucestershire’s Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) there remains a financial gap of around £14million in plans for 2006/07 and these savings need to be made.
The Primary Care Trusts locally agree that they must speed up plans to change services if they are to meet the needs of patients in the future. Every month that goes by without savings being made increases the level of savings required later in the year.
The additional funds received over previous years have been welcome. However, the majority of this money has been spent meeting the costs of new drugs, improving waiting times and meeting commitments such as the GP contract, consultant contract, pay awards, increased NI and pensions contributions and the new Out of Hours service.
By 2007/08, the financial allocation by head of population in Gloucestershire will still be below the England average based on the below average health needs of the population in Gloucestershire. However the demand for healthcare locally does not reflect this.
NHS organisations in Gloucestershire have already introduced strong controls to improve their efficiency and reduce their costs. These include controls on recruitment and spending on goods and services, controls on use of bank and agency staff and spending on areas such as training.
West Gloucestershire is a relatively small organisation. Its management costs represent only 2% of its total spend on NHS services and under plans for a single Primary Care Trust in Gloucestershire (from 1 st October 2006), these costs will reduce yet further.
