There when you need us most

There when you need us most
This week I had a health scare. I had been experiencing some shortness of breath and chest pain. I was about to start a meeting when I felt dizzy and clammy. My mind started racing, I am a fit and active with few risk indicators for cardiac problems, although I confess that I like a beer and a glass of wine at the weekend. Dr Gary O’Hare took me to the A&E at Whiston, although I was reluctant to go he and Dr Cliff Richards insisted that I should get checked out and that it was an A&E issue. In the next few hours I received absolutely fabulous treatment. Three ECGs, two blood tests and a chest x-ray later and I was discharged, with some follow up to come but assured that I was fit and healthy and it was unlikely that I had a heart problem.

So, for me, the NHS was there when I needed it most. It was also there for the people I spoke to throughout the day – the woman with a UTI, the elderly man who had fallen, the woman who wanted to end her life as she felt she could not go on – I enjoyed the quality of the conversations. I saw care, compassion and professionalism everywhere – staff who are deeply and passionately committed to caring for people.  In a strange way I enjoyed the experience, it was interesting to see it from a different perspective.

Congratulations to St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Well done to all those who work at St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. The Care Quality Commission has just rated St Helens Hospital has been rated as an outstanding hospital and Whiston Hospital rated as good with outstanding features. This places them amongst the best hospitals in the NHS.  

Simon Banks
Chief Officer

Delivering the Forward View

 The Spending Review in November 2015 provided the NHS in England with a credible basis on which to accomplish three interdependent and essential tasks: first, to implement the Five Year Forward View; second, to restore and maintain financial balance; and third, to deliver core access and quality standards for patients. It included an £8.4 billion real terms increase by 2020/21, front-loaded in 2016/17. With these resources, we now need to close the health and wellbeing gap, the care and quality gap, and the finance and efficiency gap. 

Delivering the Forward View: NHS planning guidance 2016/17-2020/21 was published by the six national NHS bodies on 22^nd December 2015. It can be found here. The document sets out a clear list of national priorities for 2016/17 and longer-term challenges for local systems, together with financial assumptions and business rules. It reflects the settlement reached with the Government through its new Mandate to NHS England. For the first time, the Mandate is not solely for the commissioning system, but sets objectives for the NHS as a whole. The guidance requires the NHS to produce two separate but connected plans:

• a five year Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), place-based and driving the Five Year Forward View; and
• a one year Operational Plan for 2016/17, organisation-based but consistent with the emerging STP.

NHS Halton CCG is already working with partners to start work on a STP that is consistent with the One Halton approach and covers three levels – (i) the Halton health and care economy, (ii) Halton and neighbouring health and care economies and (iii) Liverpool City Region. This is our chance to build on our achievements of recent years and move at pace to transform health and care services so that they improve health outcomes, provide excellent levels of quality and are financially and clinically sustainable. In short, we must deliver the Five Year Forward View – there is no other option.

Simon Banks