South West Citizens Assembly Chair visits Derriford

South West Citizen’s Assembly Chair Kevin Dixon has met with our Medical Director Phil Hughes following a tour of Derriford Hospital.

The Clinical Senate Citizens’ Assembly is made up of lay members with a strong interest in improving regional NHS services and who bring the public voice right to the heart of our work.

Mac Armstrong, Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust Consultant GI Radiologist, offered the tour to Mr Dixon after he gave a presentation to the SW senate about benefits of multi-disciplinary team (MDT) treatment for patients.

He said: “Having a patient’s representative understand and visit our MDTs validates the processes we have developed and effort that we make to tailor the best care for each individual patient using the collective experience and wisdom of the whole clinical team.”

Mr Dixon said: “This was a valuable opportunity to see the work of the MDTs as they identified best care for individual patients. The decision-making process fully utilised the wide experience of the clinical team. The invitation to patient representatives to observe was a great way to assure patients of the high standards of care they can expect.”

The role of the Citizens’ Assembly is:

• To provide the wider Citizen (patient/carer/service user) voice to the Clinical Senate.
• To consider issues of strategic importance raised by commissioners.
• To act as a peer support body for Citizen members of the Clinical Senate Council.
• To link to the NHS England Citizen Assembly to provide a three-way communication channel for patient participation, ie locally, regionally and nationally.