NHS Southwark CCG plans to develop new community health centre

[Health Involvement]

NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) agreed plans for improving health services in and around Dulwich at its Governing Body meeting held on 12 September. Based on what local people said, they plan to develop a new centre to provide improved community health services. Their goal is to improve community services and make them more accessible, joined up and convenient for patients. They consulted on two different options - either having specialist community based care at a smaller centre and in several GP practices across the area, or the option which was most preferred during consultation ? a more centralised approach with a single larger centre. The preferred location for the planned larger health centre is the Dulwich Hospital site.

For a full update on the programme go to:

mailto:http://www.southwarkccg.nhs.uk/GetInvolved/ImprovingServicesConsultation/More%20Information/Programme%20update%20-%20October%202013.pdf

[fl0wer]

Sorry, but I am going to bring your well-meaning, jargon infested document to the attention of EDF readers.

From the above link, this line especially caught my eye.

"*There should be a communications and engagement plan that seeks to reach all sections of the

community."

Look: The plan needn't "seek to reach..." it needs to actually REACH; and not "all sections of the community" but EVERYONE.

We can all blither on about 'seeking' things, or how stuff 'should' happen. As for 'sections of communities', where do they exist?

Here are its other lines - readers, feel free to get cracking with your Plain English pea-shooters.

"*The consultation supports the development of community-based health services, and in particular services for people with long term conditions.

*The CCG should talk to NHS Property Services (the current owners) about the Dulwich Hospital site and the development of a significant health centre ?hub?.

*Plans should include improving the quality of primary care and community service provision.

*Local people value good quality general practice and the CCG should build on this.

*The CCG should develop services in a way that supports integration, continuity of care and which are

located in a way that reflects the care pathway.

*Access and transport are critical factors in the plans we are developing, and the hub or centre should

be located in a way that maximises transport opportunities.

*Service users should be involved in design."

[Burbage]

fl0wer Wrote:

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> Sorry, but I am going to bring your well-meaning,

> jargon infested document to the attention of EDF

> readers.

This seems a little unfair, give the document is effectively a summary of a repeat. They're just re-announcing the choice of Option A (or possibly B, I forget), and setting out some of the blander findings of the survey. If they'd just said they were building the polyclinic, without adding all the guff, they'd have had nothing new to say at all.

Besides, the fact that patients feel the health service should deliver healthcare in a way that people can access might seem haemorrhagically obvious to the layman, but other threads suggest it'll come as shocking news to GPs. Dressing it up in the euphemistic garbage of the industry may help drive the message home and thus move the project forward within the service delivery community. That, surely, can't be a bad thing.

[fl0wer]

It wouldn't matter, Burbage, but NHS administrators draw fat salaries producing this tosh while nurses are kept on the lowest salaries possible.

[nxjen]

I see your point but "producing this tosh" is a sign of the times and has come to be expected. I think there is a danger of condemning the proposals too soon, on the face of it they seem positive and of benefit to the community. Perhaps the time to protest is if, as the proposals become more detailed, it becomes clear there are plans which may have a detrimental impact.