Speaker to be confirmed.
Minutes:
Dr Amr Zeineldine, from the Aylesbury Partnership outlined the changes from a GP’s perspective:
£30m of funding would be switched to GPs every year for the next five years, so the commissioning would focus on improving access to services, self-care, and detection especially in terms of smoking cessation and HIV prevention. Another focus would be teenage conceptions and obesity.
For GPs to be able to commission effectively, they had to understand the problems in their area. In order to make the savings, especially in terms of management, it was important to provide services differently, especially with a view to improving access to services close to home and to preventing admissions. Important areas in these efforts were: sexual health, HIV, cancer screening, healthy lifestyles, flu and childhood immunisations. Systems had to be set up to allow for efficient referrals, community-based services, new urgent care needs, and access to mental health services. This would free up hospitals to innovate more.
The chair introduced Michael Parker, the current Chairman, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and his successor Professor Sir George Alberti.
Mr Parker reminded attendees to have their say by becoming a member of the King’s trust. He outlined that Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s and SLAM (South London and Maudseley) trusts were coming together to improve services. This would allow these hospitals to concentrate on world-class specialist, tertiary care. He went on to warn that the closure of facilities in Lewisham, Bromley and Greenwich would put increased pressure on services at King’s. This made reconfiguring services more important, including an emphasis on self-care and self-advocacy. He urged people not to crowd A&E and trauma services with issues which could be taken care of in the GP surgery.
He thenintroduced his successor as chair, Professor Sir George Alberti who told the meeting that his main focus would be to continue providing safe, quality care while engaging with the community and stakeholders. This built on the work he had been doing around the medical aspects of preventing violence against women and children, as well as around diabetes and obesity. He reiterated the importance of patients becoming trust members and governors, and offered to come back to attend a future community council meeting.
The chair said he wanted to give recognition and thanks to Michael Parker for his service while chairman of the trust.
In response to questions from the floor, Michael Parker said that he was moving on to the NHS London Board. Councillor Dixon-Fyle said that the health and well-being boards would be in instrumental in ensuring that services would be improving and commissioned locally.
In response to a question from the floor, Dr Zeineldine explained that 70% of consultations had stress-related elements to them, which in turn had mental health and physical effects. The meeting also heard that forms for becoming a trust member were available from the trust’s website and at the hospital reception. Dr Zeineldine added that residents may also want to join locality participation groups which operated in many GP practices and helped practices review their services.
Responding to a question from the floor about how service users’ feedback was going to be included in shaping services, Cllr Dixon-Fyle said that patient surveys would be looked at and that the links with the health and well-being boards would also be used.
The chair thanked all speakers for attending.