National Health Service (NHS), PCT & Local Health Board News - October 2006

England - Local PCT News

Bedfordfordshire Heartlands PCT - Sexual Health Survey

The PCT's website is hosting an anonymous internet survey on sexual health from 25th Sept to 8th Oct. Services they are interested in hearing about include contraception, sexually transmitted infection services, and information/advice.

Good Hope Hospital NHS Trust / Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust

The Financial Times is reporting that the Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust is about to acquire the nearby Good Hope Hospital Trust. Unlike the more usual sort of merger, where both organisations are dissolved and a new one formed, only Good Hope will be dissolved and its assets, liabilities and staff will be taken over by the Heart of England Trust.

Good Hope is currently spending £1m per month more than its income, and it has a historic deficit of £27m. In its first year of operation last year, Heart of England made a £5m surplus on £280m turnover, and it has been running Good Hope on a management contract for most of the past year. The Financial Times believes that this is likely to be the first of a wave of approximately a dozen such acquisitions during the next two years.

Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Trust - Consultant Nurse

Felicity Young has been appointed as the island's first Consultant Nurse. As Consultant Nurse in Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, she has developed a Sexual Health Service which provides screening, diagnosis and treatment for those with STDs and HIV/AIDS.

North Bradford / Airedale PCTs - Heart Failure Palliative Care Pilot

A new palliative care service called Better Together has been launched at the Marie Curie Hospice in Maudlsey Street in Bradford. It is a joint pilot scheme run by the local PCTs, Marie Curie Cancer Care and the British Heart Foundation, and if successful it will be implemented nationally. Marie Curie Nurses will work alongside the BHF Nurses and will, for the first time, provide practical care to people with advanced heart failure, enabling them to stay at home if they wish.

It is anticipated that the better palliative care provided by this new service will mean fewer hospital admissions and, therefore, savings for the NHS in Bradford. The national pilot is taking place in the following four PCTs:
- North Bradford PCT
- Airedale PCT
- Bournemouth PCT
- Poole PCT

Rotherham PCT - Substance Misuse

A joint review of drug treatment services undertaken by the Healthcare Commission in partnership with the National Treatment Agency has resulted in Rotherham Drug Services achieving the highest score in the country, and a rating of Level 4 (Excellent). The review took place during 2005/2006, and covered 149 Drug Action Teams (DATs):

- 5% were rated as "‘excellent" (Level 4)
- 23% were rated as "good" (Level 3)
- 71% were rated as "fair" (Level 2), and
- 1% as "weak" (Level 1)

Anne Charlesworth, Drug Strategy Manager at Rotherham PCT, said: “This review confirms Rotherham is leading the way with drug treatment and that drug users accessing our services are receiving high quality treatment."

St Albans & Harpenden PCT - CAT Tender

A key objective in the PCT's turnaround plan is the establishment of a Clinical Assessment & Treatment Service (CATS) for all high-referring specialties. The aim is to improve patient care whilst better managing demand, and evidence from other PCTs where Tier2 and CAT services have been established shows that these services can retain a high proportion of outpatient referrals and significantly reduce waiting times.

Batches 3 and 4 are still open to tender and include:

- urology
- respiratory
- cardiology
- minor oral surgery (27th Sept closing date)
- diabetes
- gastroenterology
- geriatric medicine
- neurology
- ophthalmology (16th Oct closing date)

Suffolk West PCT - Diabetic Retinopathy Screening

The West Suffolk Diabetes Eye Screening Service has been offering annual checks to around 8,000 people with diabetes since 2002, and the service is now being rolled out to east Cambridgeshire, south Norfolk and north and mid Essex.

Sunderland tPCT - Diabetes Services

The PCT, in conjunction with the Podiatry Department of City Hospitals, has launched a new one-stop foot and eye check-up service across Sunderland. Patients are now able to access joint screening sessions at convenient locations throughout the city, rather than having to visit hospital or GP practices, and the number of DNAs has already been reduced. Currently, over 450 patients attend such appointments each month.
The sessions will be held at:

- Grindon Lane Primary Care Centre
- Galleries Health Centre, Washington
- Pallion Health Centre (from 18 September)
- Houghton Health Centre (from 1 October)

The new programme is one of a number of recent developments to benefit diabetic patients. Grindon Lane Primary Care Centre now provides a range of support services under one roof, include an eight-week educational course for those newly diagnosed with the condition.

Wales - Local Health Board News

Swansea NHS Trust - Mobile Osteoporosis Scanner

Singleton Hospital is the base for Wales's only mobile osteoporosis scanner, which is visiting Carmarthenshire's West Wales General Hospital this month. There are 4,200 hip fractures a year in Wales and 25% of those patients die within a year of falling.

Scotland - Local NHS News

NHS Grampian - Out-of-Hours Community Pharmacy

A recent survey for NHS Grampian indicated that people want their local pharmacies to be open later and more often. This led to the launch of a 6-month pilot scheme in July in the Peterhead area, linked to the local out-of-hours medical service. The research was undertaken by Aberdeen University and NHS Grampian, and revealed the following:

- Almost half of the public did not know what to do if their pharmacy was closed
- People were prepared to travel up to two miles to reach a pharmacy
- The preferred time for extended opening was between 6pm - 8pm
- In the last 6 months 10% of the public, 33% of GPs and 11% of nurses had wanted to access a pharmacy outside normal opening hours. 24% of pharmacies had provided these services.
- 43% of community pharmacists said that they would be willing to provide out-of-hours pharmacy services in the future. Reasons for not being willing included issues of security (59%).

NHS Highland - Multiple Sclerosis

An innovative project called Partners in Change is now in its final stage and demonstrating positive results for people affected by MS. NHS Highland is working with local groups to share good practice, raise awareness and take forward new initiatives.

NHS Lothian - PMS Pilot Programme

Three years ago, NW Edinburgh launched Scotland's first LHP-wide PMS pilot (the majority of practices have independently negotiated PMS contracts). An end-of-pilot report is now available. The programme’s starting point was better patient care and equity - the teams did not want to see patients in some practices benefiting from enhanced care services while patients in others did not. The clinical focus was on Diabetes and the secondary prevention of CHD, and services were typically nurse-led with significant GP support. Results include:

- More patients are being cared for in primary care
- The percentage of Type 2 diabetes patients with "hospital only" care has dropped from 57% to 16%
- Early indications are that there may be a reduction in cardiac emergency admissions

Future plans include building on the work of four practices that have selected respiratory disease as a practice-specific project. There are plans to fund a Clinical Lead and roll out training and best practice to the whole area. The LHP would then be in a position to take the lead role in piloting a Lothian-wide respiratory project by close working with acute sector respiratory services.

Northern Ireland - Local NHS News

Southern HSSB - High Cost Drug Therapies

The board has outlined its commissioning priorities for 2006/7 and there is to be significant additional investment in high cost drug therapies. These include Disease Modifying Therapies for Multiple Sclerosis, and the cancer drugs Herceptin and Velcade.

Ulster Community & Hospitals Trust - Continence Services

The Continence Team now has a portable, lightweight scanner which can be used in outlying clinics and individual homes. This helps to ensure a correct diagnosis of bladder dysfunction is made in a timely fashion, so that appropriate care can be arranged.