Public to have their say over community services framework

NHS healthcare commissioners in Devon want to hear from the public after they published a proposed framework to ensure services are right for the future.

The publication of the report, ‘Integrated, personal and sustainable; community services for the 21st century’ comes after 12-months of discussions with public, clinical and professional communities about what patients really need.

It was produced by NHS Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (NEW Devon CCG) and offers proposals to change the way community hospitals, community nursing and urgent care services are delivered - to continue to improve quality for patients and against a backdrop of rising demand, demographic change and economic austerity.

The framework is based upon six recurrent themes from discussions with the public and other stakeholders, namely that future community services should:

Help people to stay well - Move towards prevention, self management and early help

Integrate care - Coordinate and integrate care to remove organisational barriers

Personalise support - Give people more choice and control over areas such as personal health budgets

Coordinate care pathways - Get the patient flows right and include responses to crises and ongoing care

Think carer, think family - Create mainstream services that are much more ‘carer aware’

Home as the first choice - Greater emphasis on more personalised and responsive care packages at home.

Dr David Jenner said: “GPs have been commissioning local health services since this time last year.  We have listened local people and believe we can continue to improve services for patients, design services to meet health needs and improve quality too.

“We’ve listened members of the public, GPs, and other important stakeholders before putting pen to paper on the draft strategic framework and now we want to test this with others.

“There is the potential to really address the challenges of the 21st century - and to make every penny count so we can achieve integrated, personal and sustainable services for our patients, friends and loved ones in future.”

The report says that by 2021 – just 7 years from now – there will 22,000 more people (26 per cent increase) aged over 75 living in the area – we need to plan effective services for the older generation. We know people prefer to be at home with the right support, but we also know that we need to rethink the way care is designed. 

If not addressed quickly, we know that the number of over 65s being admitted to hospital will rise by 2 per cent a year – we need to make a change.

To address this, the framework recommends:

• Putting a greater emphasis on preventing disease and ill health and giving people more control through personalisation of their care.
• Increasing the availability and range of out-of-hospital services to ensure people are able to live independently for longer
• Developing community hospitals in new ways - inpatient beds where they are needed but with some innovated models of ‘health and wellbeing hubs’ so as to serve local people for the future.
• Establishing a small number of urgent care centres which can see, treat and complete care for more people, while reducing the overall number of MIUs. 

Some of what is proposed in the strategic framework is already underway in parts of Devon although the document proposes that the work should accelerate.  More in depth work is needed for other areas and we will be sharing more detailed proposals and giving opportunities to comment in the coming weeks and months.

Health and wellbeing hubs are being developed in Budleigh Salterton and Moretonhampstead – with local groups leading the way, working with the NHS to plan and organise future service provision.

In Tiverton, local people worked with the NHS to develop a specification for a 8am-10pm GP-led minor injuries unit. For case studies see appendix a.

The CCG wants people to have their say until on the overall strategy from now until July 8.

For full details go to the CCG’s website www.newdevonccg.nhs.uk