First of all I just want to say a big thank you for all the members who attended
the NHS Halton CCG Members Forum on the 26th April.
The whole
afternoon was centred around quality, innovation, prevention and
productivity (QIPP). The feedback we received was extremely reassuring and
impressive. The clinical input and leadership generated some lots of great ideas
during the facilitation sessions. Personally I felt there was a real connection
to our practices and the challenges faced within Halton. This sets a platform
for further collaboration and unity.
All the feedback is greatly
appreciated, an email will be circulated next week with summarises the actions
and feedback..
Dave Sweeney
Interim Chief Officer
Friday, 28 April 2017
Friday, 14 April 2017
Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View
Next
Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View
On 31st March 2017 the Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View was published. It restates, reframes and reinforces the themes set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View in October 2014. It is and will be the blueprint for how the NHS will operate for the remainder of this Parliament. The focus remains on the reform of urgent and emergency care and of general practice, continuing to make advances in the treatment of cancer and ensuring parity in mental health services. There is also an emphasis on all part of the NHS working together to achieve better health, better care and better value for the populations they serve, dismantling organisational boundaries if this is required.
Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View can be found on the NHS England website at https://www.england.nhs.uk/five-year-forward-view/. It doesn’t take long to read, and I urge you to do so. This is Plan A, there is no Plan B.
Simon Banks
On 31st March 2017 the Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View was published. It restates, reframes and reinforces the themes set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View in October 2014. It is and will be the blueprint for how the NHS will operate for the remainder of this Parliament. The focus remains on the reform of urgent and emergency care and of general practice, continuing to make advances in the treatment of cancer and ensuring parity in mental health services. There is also an emphasis on all part of the NHS working together to achieve better health, better care and better value for the populations they serve, dismantling organisational boundaries if this is required.
Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View can be found on the NHS England website at https://www.england.nhs.uk/five-year-forward-view/. It doesn’t take long to read, and I urge you to do so. This is Plan A, there is no Plan B.
Simon Banks
Friday, 31 March 2017
Leaving Middle Earth, or Halton at least....
Leaving Middle Earth, or Halton at least....
At the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in the book The Return Of The King, Frodo departs for the Undying Lands in the West with Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and many Elves. Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel all carry with them the Three Eleven Rings out of Middle-Earth. With their departure, the Third Age ended.
Three of our "ring bearers" will be leaving Halton at the end of March, taking with them (like the Elves) years of experience and wisdom in the NHS (not like the Elves). We are saying goodbye to three NHS heroes, three legends in their field who have well over 100 years of service between them. Dr Cliff Richards MBE is retiring as our Chair, Jan Snoddon is stepping down as Chief Nurse and Paul Brickwood is also retiring as our Chief Finance Officer.
It has been a pleasure to work with three people who are absolutely committed to the NHS, to getting the best for patients and who are hugely talented and respected in their own professional field. They are being replaced by three highly capable and talented individuals - Dr David Lyon, Michelle Creed and David Cooper - each of whom will bring their own take on life and on the role they will fill. So, as with the end of The Return Of The King, there is an emotional ending but the future is bright and safe.
Simon Banks
At the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in the book The Return Of The King, Frodo departs for the Undying Lands in the West with Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins, and many Elves. Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel all carry with them the Three Eleven Rings out of Middle-Earth. With their departure, the Third Age ended.
Three of our "ring bearers" will be leaving Halton at the end of March, taking with them (like the Elves) years of experience and wisdom in the NHS (not like the Elves). We are saying goodbye to three NHS heroes, three legends in their field who have well over 100 years of service between them. Dr Cliff Richards MBE is retiring as our Chair, Jan Snoddon is stepping down as Chief Nurse and Paul Brickwood is also retiring as our Chief Finance Officer.
It has been a pleasure to work with three people who are absolutely committed to the NHS, to getting the best for patients and who are hugely talented and respected in their own professional field. They are being replaced by three highly capable and talented individuals - Dr David Lyon, Michelle Creed and David Cooper - each of whom will bring their own take on life and on the role they will fill. So, as with the end of The Return Of The King, there is an emotional ending but the future is bright and safe.
Simon Banks
Friday, 17 March 2017
Delivering Better Births in Cheshire and Merseyside
Delivering
Better Births in Cheshire and Merseyside
We
were delighted to able to host a visit from Baroness Cumberlege of Newick and
Professor Sir Cyril Chantler earlier this month. Baroness Cumberlege was
the Chair of a review of maternity services for NHS England in 2015 and Professor
Sir Cyril Chantler was Vice-Chair. Better
Births, the report of the review, sets out a vision
for safe and efficient models of maternity care: safer care, joined up across
disciplines, reflecting women’s choices and offering continuity of care along
the pathway.
Cheshire and Merseyside has been chosen as an
“early adopter” site by NHS England to implement the recommendations in Better
Births, which is why Baroness Cumberlege and Professor Sir Cyril Chantler
were visiting us. This work is being delivered by 27 NHS organisations
working together as the Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s and Children’s Services
Partnership. The Partnership is hosted and supported by NHS Halton CCG.
The visit took in maternity services across
Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens and Warrington. Both Baroness
Cumberlege and Professor Sir Cyril Chantler were impressed by the progress we
have been making in improving local maternity services and in our future plans
and aspirations to establish a Local Maternity System across Cheshire and
Merseyside that delivers Better Births.
Friday, 3 March 2017
A bright future for Halton Hospital
A bright future for Halton Hospital
There have been a lot of rumours recently about the future of Halton Hospital. There have been some stories on social media and other platforms suggesting, quite wrongly, that the site has no future. This is strange given that the local NHS has invested heavily in services on the site in recent years, including the transfer of the Cheshire and Merseyside Treatment Centre building to Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the development of additional elective services and the opening of a new Urgent Care Centre. As you may have also seen elsewhere in the media, we now want to take this to the next level, working with the Trust and Halton Borough Council.
Exciting plans to develop a fully integrated community focused health and wellbeing campus at Halton Hospital have been unveiled. This comes as a result of the selection of the Halton Lea area that surrounds the Halton Hospital campus as one of NHS England’s Healthy New Towns demonstrator sites in March 2016. The ‘healthy new town’ concept aims to shape the health of communities and rethink how health and care services can be delivered within communities. This work is being led by Halton Borough Council, working with the NHS, and represents the efforts of a wide range of partners across the health and social care, retail and leisure, housing and regeneration sectors.
Our plans are still being formulated and more information is available here This is, we believe, a once in a generation opportunity to do something different and innovative with existing NHS estate at heart of a local community. If we pull this off the future for Halton Hospital is very bright indeed.
Simon Banks
There have been a lot of rumours recently about the future of Halton Hospital. There have been some stories on social media and other platforms suggesting, quite wrongly, that the site has no future. This is strange given that the local NHS has invested heavily in services on the site in recent years, including the transfer of the Cheshire and Merseyside Treatment Centre building to Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the development of additional elective services and the opening of a new Urgent Care Centre. As you may have also seen elsewhere in the media, we now want to take this to the next level, working with the Trust and Halton Borough Council.
Exciting plans to develop a fully integrated community focused health and wellbeing campus at Halton Hospital have been unveiled. This comes as a result of the selection of the Halton Lea area that surrounds the Halton Hospital campus as one of NHS England’s Healthy New Towns demonstrator sites in March 2016. The ‘healthy new town’ concept aims to shape the health of communities and rethink how health and care services can be delivered within communities. This work is being led by Halton Borough Council, working with the NHS, and represents the efforts of a wide range of partners across the health and social care, retail and leisure, housing and regeneration sectors.
Our plans are still being formulated and more information is available here This is, we believe, a once in a generation opportunity to do something different and innovative with existing NHS estate at heart of a local community. If we pull this off the future for Halton Hospital is very bright indeed.
Simon Banks
Friday, 17 February 2017
Keeping Antibiotics Working
Keeping Antibiotics Working
Antibiotic prescribing, and action to avoid antimicrobial resistance, has become an area of focus for the NHS across Cheshire and Merseyside. Working with our colleagues in local authority Public Health teams and Public Health England, we are highlighting that antibiotics don’t work for everything, they can only be used to treat or prevent some types of bacterial infection. We are spreading the message that antibiotics don’t work for viral infections and, when it comes to antibiotics, people should take the advice of their doctor.
If we don’t act on the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics there will be serious consequences for society. Taking antibiotics when you don’t need them encourages dangerous bacteria that live inside you to become resistant. That means that antibiotics may not work when you next need them most. This puts you and others at serious risk. The overuse of antibiotics in recent years means they're becoming less effective and has led to the emergence of "superbugs". These are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to many different types of antibiotics. These types of infections can be serious and challenging to treat, and are becoming an increasing cause of disability and death across the world. The biggest worry is that new strains of bacteria may emerge that can't be effectively treated by any existing antibiotics. So, this is very much a case of “the doctor knows best”.
Antibiotic prescribing, and action to avoid antimicrobial resistance, has become an area of focus for the NHS across Cheshire and Merseyside. Working with our colleagues in local authority Public Health teams and Public Health England, we are highlighting that antibiotics don’t work for everything, they can only be used to treat or prevent some types of bacterial infection. We are spreading the message that antibiotics don’t work for viral infections and, when it comes to antibiotics, people should take the advice of their doctor.
If we don’t act on the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics there will be serious consequences for society. Taking antibiotics when you don’t need them encourages dangerous bacteria that live inside you to become resistant. That means that antibiotics may not work when you next need them most. This puts you and others at serious risk. The overuse of antibiotics in recent years means they're becoming less effective and has led to the emergence of "superbugs". These are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to many different types of antibiotics. These types of infections can be serious and challenging to treat, and are becoming an increasing cause of disability and death across the world. The biggest worry is that new strains of bacteria may emerge that can't be effectively treated by any existing antibiotics. So, this is very much a case of “the doctor knows best”.
Friday, 3 February 2017
There is only One You
There is only One You
Public Health England has recently launched a
campaign called One You. The campaign focuses on the changes we
can all make in our lives that will help us stay healthier for longer, and
provides some practical suggestions and support to help. The campaign,
supported by a website and smartphone applications, looks at helping people
makes changes in their lifestyle.
Whether they are eating the wrong
things, drinking more than they should, continuing to smoke despite everything
they know, or just not being active enough, all of these small things can add
up to an unhealthy you. The website is really easy to use and contains a
health quiz so that each individual can assess what they need to do to take
more control of their health.
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