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Wednesday, 31 December 2008 09:35 |
A Tonic for Colne & Your NHS your say The health of the residents of Pendle is generally poor when compared with similar areas around the country. Here, death rates from heart disease and stroke are much higher than the regional and national average at 112 per 100,000 compared to a national average of 90. In 2003, average life expectancy in Waterside ward, in Colne, was 73 years compared with 84 in Blacko and Higherford. Similar figures relate to other areas of Pendle. Infant mortality, suicide rates and teenage pregnancy rates are also high compared with the national and regional averages. These are serious health and social problems which require urgent and sustained attention!A raft of changes to the way the NHS operates, both locally and nationally, is either being considered or being implemented: - The recent Darzi report commissioned by the government forms the basis of planned legislation changes that will encourage ‘polyclinics’ to enable patients to be treated locally instead of many journeys to hospital. The proposals also include giving patients more control over their treatment;
- The recent decision to build the new £10 million health centre on the Craddock Road site in Colne will enable all the local medical practises to share many new and exciting diagnostic and treatment facilities based at the town centre location.
- ‘Prevention is better than cure’ is an obvious adage and thankfully the East Lancashire NHS has set itself a target of saving a million years of life by 2011. Joined-up services are required to support Health Education of everyone in Pendle. Facilities like the new Colne health centre and the Nelson Yarnspinners have to provide preventative advice and services.
- Getting the public and patients involved in monitoring and engaging with the local NHS is proving a slow process. The replacement of the ‘focussed’ Public & Patient Involvement (PPI) forums with the Lancashire-wide LINk (Local Involvement Network) organisation is proving very slow to get off the ground and the previous excellent monitoring work of the PPIs has ‘run into the sand’.
- The East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust is applying for Foundation Trust status which will make the Trust directly responsible to the Department of Health rather that the North West Strategic Health authority of the NHS. A condition of foundation trust status is which will involve providing information and facilities to over 7,000 members of the public who have applied to be NHS Trust ‘members’.
So, there is good news and bad news about health improvement across Pendle. But, my biggest concern is the ‘creeping’ privatisation of the health service with staff from the local hospitals being ‘transferred’ across to private companies to continue doing the same work as before. Details from the draft Legislation report relating toThe National Health Service reform bill The main purpose of the Bill is to: take forward those proposals arising from Lord Darzi’s ‘NHS Next Stage Review’ of the NHS in England that would require legislation to enable their implementation. The main elements of a Bill might be:• in relation to publishing an NHS Constitution;• to enable and encourage Primary Care Trusts to be more responsive to their local communities;• to give greater scope for patients to shape the care they receive. The main benefits of a Bill could be:• to reinforce the core purpose and values of the NHS and to introduce measures to make the NHS as effective at preventing ill health and promoting wellbeing as it is at cure;• to strengthen public involvement in Primary Care Trusts’ commissioning arrangements; • to allow the possibility for those patients, who wish to do so, to have greater control over the management of their care.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 31 December 2008 11:08 )
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