NHS Halton CCG Members Forum

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  26^th 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 

Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View

Next Steps on the NHS Five Year Forward View

On 31^st 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 

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 

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.

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

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”.

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.  

Read more at https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou#W1whI8XmvcCfBIWY.97

Developing accountable care in Halton

Over the last five years health and care organisations working in the borough of Halton have increasingly come together to improve the health, care and wellbeing of the population we serve. This has had most resonance and impact in services for adults in the borough, particularly for older people who are frail and require additional support. The collaborative approach that has emerged, which we refer to as One Halton, has been successful in reducing complexity and fragmentation, making better use of scarce resources and improving health outcomes and the quality of services for our population.

Since the publication of the NHS Five Year Forward View in October 2014  there has been considerable interest in “place-based systems of care” in which health and care organisations collaborate and share resources to deliver better outcomes, better care and better value for money. A recent publication by The King’s Fund strongly argues that this represents the future direction for health and care in England. There are many examples throughout the country where place-based systems of care are emerging on a more formal basis through a variety of governance frameworks. 

The development of place-based systems of care has been actively encouraged by the New Models of Care Programme established by NHS England following the NHS Five Year Forward View and is accelerating through the emerging Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) being developed in response to the shared planning guidance 2016/17.  There is considerable interest in the concept of accountable care, where a group of health and care organisations take responsibility for providing all care for a given population for a defined period of time under a contractual arrangement with a commissioner.

 

The One Halton programme has begun to deliver what could be recognised as a place-based approach to health, care and wellbeing for our borough. We met yesterday with colleagues from our provider trusts, Halton Borough Council, the voluntary sector, Healthwatch and one ofour GP Federations to take the next step in our journey together by actively exploring and committing to establishing a model of accountable care that fits with the vision, values and ethos of One Halton. We agreed that we needed to start to shape what this may mean for our borough by engaging the support of AQUA, who have done similar work in areas such as Wigan and Wirral. Accountable care arrangements take time to build, but it is arguable that our work in developing One Halton gives a good foundation for this to take place with a degree of momentum and urgency.  

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

This is my first message of 2017 and is obviously a good opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year.  January is the time that people make resolutions to abstain from certain activities or behaviours, or at least do them with a greater degree of moderation.  It can also the time to be positive and take up new hobbies or activities that enhance your health and wellbeing.  There are lots of opportunities that are on offer in Halton to give up smoking, use Dry January to cut back on your alcohol consumption, lose weight, learn a new skill or take on a new challenge – for example, volunteering for a local charity or community group.  Some of these may involve a financial contribution, some may not.  All require a commitment of time and effort from the individual, whether on their own or as part of a group.  So, if you are thinking about stopping something and need some help, or taking something up and need some support, there are many organisations in the borough who can help you.  Whatever you chose to do, good luck!      

Simon Banks