10 March 2017
A public meeting on The Future of Our NHS last Tuesday evening at Christ Church First School addressed the big changes taking place in the health service, how to respond to major funding cuts to health budgets, and innovations in approaches to personal health care here in Frome. The meeting was organised by East Mendip Green Party in order to raise awareness of these issues, and to hear public concerns, ahead of this May's Somerset County Council elections.
Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) were invited to attend to explain their plans, but declined. Alison Barkshire, former NHS manager, stepped in to describe the Somerset Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), which has been produced by the county council and CCG. This plan aims to find ways for health care in Somerset to remain effective in the face of reduced funding and staffing shortages. There will be a reduction of beds provided in community hospitals, and possibly acute hospitals with the merger of some hospital services onto one site. To cope with this, the plan describes a future where more health care is provided in people's own homes, for example by district nurses and by using technologies like Skype to provide consultations remotely. It promotes greater integration, with service providers working together to provide both health and social care, and mental and physical care. At the same time, more voluntary and charity provision would be used to address resourcing problem, and a focus on prevention. The STP is at an early stage of development - with no specific measures included, it is still a 'plan for a plan', but more details are expected later this year.
The STP has been developed against the background where the UK already has only 2.7 beds per 1000 against an EU average of 4.5; 2.8 doctors per 1000 compared to EU average of 3.8; 8.2 nurses per 1000 compared to 9.4 EU average, and less spent per person than the EU average, the which is due to decline further in 2018/19.
Next, Dr Jon Orrell, a GP, health campaigner and Green Party councillor in Weymouth, warned that the STP needs to be seen within the context of insufficient funding of the NHS, alongside massive cuts to social services and public health. He argued that it is impossible for services to be maintained to a satisfactory level at these funding levels - there is a limit to the savings that can be made with increased integration, centralising of services and more care at home, and at a certain point this becomes detrimental to health outcomes, for example when people need to travel much further for care in emergencies. His county of Dorset has begun implementing its STP, and has seen half of its community hospitals close, with big increases in ambulance wait times and other service losses. Dr Orrell criticised the government for imposing this funding crisis on the NHS unnecessarily, since the UK has sufficient public funds to prioritise and properly maintain the NHS if it chose to - we currently spend less on health and social care as a percentage of national GDP than other developed nations, including the US, France and Germany. He noted that the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has advocated privatisation of the NHS in the past, and we have seen much greater involvement of profit-making private companies in the health service in recent years. He called on local people to take action if they want to save NHS services, for example by getting involved with national campaigns like Keep Our NHS Public.
Finally, Dr Helen Kingston of Frome Medical Practice described the impact of funding cuts and staffing problems - there is a shortage of GPs in both public and private practice, and it takes 10 years to train a new GP. The Frome practice has responded by aiming to help people to manage their own health conditions. A key aspect has been a more personalised approach, taking account of the fact that guidelines on individual conditions may not be appropriate for patients with multiple health issues, tackling over-medicalisation and emphasising the importance of healthy lifestyles and greater social cohesion to people's well-being. The Frome Care Hub has been providing this approach, and is a model which is to be rolled out across Mendip.
The panel stressed how important it is for people to respond to the STP, to tell health planners what local services they most value. To feedback on the Somerset STP, or to request a paper copy, call 01935 385 240 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm) or email STPFeedback@somersetccg.nhs.uk. The STP can be found online at http://www.somersetccg.nhs.uk/news/somersets-five-year-health-and-care-plan-published/
East Mendip Green Party would like to thank all the panellists and everyone who attended, as well as Cllr Pippa Goldfinger who chaired the meeting.
Photo: Celie Nigoumi
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