Dorset Clinical Commissoning Group

I went to an event “Supporting Stronger Voices” and event organised by the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group at AFC Bournemouth.

Event aim. Six monthly forum for patient, carer and lay representatives to provide:

  • Information on how the views of local people are informing the CCG’s work
  • The opportunity to provide our views on an area of review or change
  • Information on view seeking methods and opportunities
  • The chance to meet other representatives, share ideas and network.

Event objectives.

  • Inform on patient/carer/lay representative feedback on first Supporting Stronger Voices event and CCG Communications and Engagement team response
  • Support  patient/carer/lay representative to have a Stronger Voice by exploring training needs
  • Inform on development of Patient Participation Groups
  • Provide some detail of  Dorset’s Clinical Services Review (CSR) and opportunity for patient/carer/lay representative involvement.

Presentation by Frances Aviss summarising patient/carer/lay representative feedback  followed by short video illustrating areas where service improvements have been made to reflect patient engagement feedback. Some interesting areas of service improvement, but little said about Cancer and End of Life.

Workshop session to try and tease out skills attendees (grouped 5-6 per table on 8 tables) would like but currently lack.

Presentation by Keith Harrison (Patient Public Involvement Development Worker & a PPG Chair) on developing Patient Participation Groups. Interesting; KH facilitates in the North Dorset Locality and currently 7 out of 10 GP practice groups in north Dorset have Patient Participation Groups. His role is to try and encourage the development of new groups for which he has clearly had some success in the last year or so despite various difficulties along the way. Ian Gall ( PPG Chair of GP practice of 9,000 patients  in Sturminster Newton area) gave details of his PPG group’s organisation and the way it operates. Probably most important factor, in his view, is to establish a high level of confidence and trust between the GP practice manager and the PPG Chair.

Presentation by Phil Richardson, Programme Director (Transformation) for Dorset’s Clinical Services Review. He described the need for the review  and the programme stages.

NHS Dorset CCG is to review the way NHS care is provided in Dorset in order to sustain a high quality of care for people living in the county: it is the first to be done in the country and follows research showing the NHS is facing significant challenges. In Dorset, these challenges include changing population, clinical standards and financial pressures. Dorset CCG is the third largest with a budget of nearly £1bn. There are approx. 100 GP practices involved and a quarter of the population has a long term condition. Dorset scores highly across all benchmarks; the net immigration to Dorset predicted to be 50,000 people by 2012. GPs have had a 20% increase in consultations over the last 2 years (and this is an ongoing trend).

The review is to be undertaken in partnership with GPs, hospitals, local authorities, and the public, and will go through 3 stages:

Stage 1: Design- a review of current services and the creation of a blueprint for future services that will clearly state what changes are proposed.

Stage 2: Consult- a public consultation so people can have their say on any changes proposed.

Stage 3- Implement-delivery of any agreed changes.

Stage 1 (of which this meeting is the pre-amble) will run from October 2014-spring 2015.

He touched upon the role of the consultancy firms appointed for the review: McKinsey would be handling the analysis of a vast amount of public and health professional feedback already in the system as well as new data; Price Waterhouse would be handling the overall project management of the review. PR is anxious to involve/engage the patient /carer/lay representative community, a point reinforced by Frances Aviss who stated that a patient/carer/lay representative engagement team of about 20 people is to be set up to participate in the programme. The team will be chaired/led by Anya de longh who works with the CCG Engagement team. Frances requested that attendees put their names forward if they felt able and willing to contribute to the team. PR, in response to questions/comments from the floor, acknowledged that the programme timescale was very tight and the general election next May could adversely affect the programme.

I would suggest that joining our own GPs Patient Participation Groups is an important way to try to influence the Clinical Commissioning Group and to keep cancer on the agenda.

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