Chairman’s Report 2009 - 2010

2009 was an eventful year. The Ambulatory Care Hospitals at the Victoria and Stobhill opened their doors in June although it took until November to sort out problems for the Dialysis units. Day surgery for the south of Glasgow is taking place in the ACH with the 12 bedded nursing unit caring for those who need an overnight stay. 48 rehabilitation beds have been transferred from the Mansionhouse Unit to the ACH. The laboratory in the ACH will not be used until the labs close in the Victoria Infirmary and the majority of the staff transfer to new labs currently being built on the Southern General site for the New South Acute Hospital.

Unfortunately the Health Minister felt that Monitoring Groups had served their purpose. The Groups were set up with a watching brief over the services at the Victoria Infirmary and Stobhill Hospital during the building of the ACADs. We still feel that the Groups could have played a similar role during the construction of the new Hospital at the SGH. and the alterations to the Royal Infirmary especially the A&E department.

The south side ACAD has come off better than the Stobhill unit on several fronts. At Stobhill

a) no provision for additional parking was made to accommodate the day surgery patients from the Royal Infirmary
b) patients requiring nursing over night following day surgery have to be trolleyed from the ACH to the main hospital . No provision was made for a bedded unit within the ACH.
c) Chemotherapy is available at the Victoria ACAD, but this facility is missing from the Stobhill ACAD.

Once the Victoria Infirmary closes our big disadvantage will be that patients requiring acute hospital attention ie A&E treatment or inpatient beds will have to attend the new South Acute Hospital and any patient requiring further attention following day surgery or investigation will have to be taken by ambulance to the South Acute Hospital.

Our last presentation of the session was on the subject of the new South Acute Hospital. When completed in 2015/16 there will be 1109 in patient beds. Already the new maternity hospital has been built and is operational. This unit will ultimately be linked to the new children’s hospital that will replace Yorkhill and the new adult hospital. All three units will be linked to the labs by an underground tunnel. On top of the 14 storey high adult hospital will be the helipad.

We decided this past year to invite speakers to inform us about various aspects of health and would like to record our grateful thanks to those who gave up their time and brought us up to date on many topics. It is our intention to continue this programme of presentations.

I could not continue as Chairman without the help of Eric Canning, Pat Lally, Douglas McGregor, Louise Laing and Mary Hamilton and must thank all of them for carrying out their duties during the past year. In addition the support of Alastair Glen, James Sandeman, David Smith, and Matthew Dunnigan is invaluable to the Forum. We are indebted to Aileen Fyfe who sends out the monthly minutes by e-mail and keeps the Forum web site up to date. Aileen has agreed to continue to do these duties for the coming session although she can no longer attend Health Board meetings once the venue changes to Gartnavel Hospital. It is heartening that on the south side of Glasgow the Forum is supported by so many people.

MARGARET HINDS, Chairman

13 April 2010

Resumé of Forum meetings Session 2009-10

At our April meeting, Dr David Stewart, Consultant Geriatrician at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow, gave a presentation on Geriatric Medicine at the Mansionhouse Unit , the first geriatric hospital to be built in Scotland. The new Victoria Hospital now contains 48 rehabilitation beds for the elderly and holds clinics that have been transferred from the Mansionhouse Unit. When the new South Acute Hospital opens in 2015/16, the Mansionhouse unit and the Victoria Infirmary will close.

May 2009 was a regular business meeting at which issues, raised by a television programme produced by an investigative Panorama team, were discussed. This programme showed film footage of care workers in the homes of various elderly, frail people and highlighted the lack of training, given to the carers and the limited time allowed by management to the carer to carry out their duties. As a result we carried out some on line research and printed extracts from a document produced by Scottish Care at Home. This organisation, a national representative body, now represents approximately 65% of the private sector’s Care at Home and Housing support services. Their Chief Executive attended a later meeting of the Forum.

In June 2009, as a result of writing to Shona Robison, Minister for Public Health in the Scottish Government, we received a reply from her department. We were told that ‘The Scottish Government plan to initiate a series of workstreams that together will form a wide ranging review of the future care costs and delivery of long-term care services for older people. The review will be taken forward jointly by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and other partners. An underlying principle of the review will be to promote and establish mechanisms to improve the provision of personalised and preventative services to enable people to remain at home - and independent - for longer.’ These work streams are up and running but we have been unable to find out what has been achieved to date.

In August the Forum committee met with Jane Grant, Chief Operating Officer of the NHS GG&C Board, to obtain an update on the new Victoria Ambulatory Care Hospital. The paper-lite system for patients’ records is not yet in place and files are still being transported on trolleys to the various clinics in the new building. Samples for chemical analysis are being collected by porters and either sent to the Victoria Infirmary Haematology laboratory or the Southern General Hospital Labs. At the time of writing this report the computer system is up and running but the paper records have not been converted into a digital form for computer storage. There is not a working laboratory on site at the new building and the signage inside and outside the building still leaves much to be desired.

At the September meeting a report was given on a meeting of members of the Scottish Health Campaigns Network with Nicola Sturgeon. The Minister is adamant that there is no further purpose to the North and South Monitoring Groups now that the Ambulatory Care Hospitals are in operation. Our contention is that there is a need for a group to monitor the next five years of the services at the Victoria Infirmary before the new South Acute Hospital is open for business.

Christine Lang of the Citizens Advice Bureau attended the October meeting and explained the role that CAB is playing in dealing with complaints about the NHS. The bureau will assist a patient to complain to the appropriate department of the health service. CAB will not take up general issues about the NHS.

The review of NHS GG&C Board was held on the 20 October under the chairmanship of Nicola Sturgeon. Board members and Heads of Department gave reports and answered questions from the public. The Chief Executive, Robert Calderwood, confirmed that the laboratory at the Victoria ACH would not become operational until the Victoria Infirmary closes in 2015-16. He also acknowledged that not all the operating theatres in the ACH are being used. The new hospital has been built with the capacity to deal with more operations in the future.

The Renal Dialysis units at the new ACHs that should have opened in July 2009 became operational in November.

In November Richard Copland , Head of Information Technology for the Health Board, gave a presentation on the computer system that is being developed for use in the NHS GG&C Board area. The system in the new ACAD buildings at Stobhill and the Victoria is not paper-lite. It is a work in progress. Patient records are brought from storage for each appointment and new notes can be entered into a computerised system. The scanning of historical material for each patient will be an on-going process and a lengthy one. In many cases a consultant will want to write a detailed letter about a patient rather than making an electronic entry into the computer system. Mr Copland advised that such letters would be scanned into the system.

In December our guest speaker was Gloria McLaughlin, Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Care at Home. Her organisation is a national representative organisation for the independent Care at Home and Housing Support Sector. As many of us know the level of care at home is patchy. The independent sector accounts for approximately 30% of the overall Care at Home Services. Although this figure continues to increase year on year, the in-house provision of local authorities still dominates provision. To adequately provide this service more carers are required, better training, better supervision, more time allowed for each house visit.

February 2010 and the Forum Committee met with two Scottish Ambulance Service managers after repeated requests for a representative of the Service to talk to the Forum. The Ambulance representatives agreed that parking at the Stobhill site is extremely difficult now that the Ambulatory Care Hospital is up and running and therefore the number of people attending the site has increased considerably. Many more people are seeking ambulance transport to attend clinics etc and the SAS is finding it very difficult to meet demand. According to the managers the number of volunteer drivers has decreased since the Westminster Government have declared that 40pence/mile can be reimbursed to the volunteer for the first 10,000 miles and 25 pence thereafter. This issue has been raised in the Scottish Parliament on more than one occasion. Bryan Bannerman, Voluntary Services Manager for NHS GG&C Board, is not aware of any reduction in the level of volunteer drivers although there are never enough.

At our March meeting Niall McGrogan, Head of Community Engagement and Transport, gave a presentation on the new South Acute Hospital development. The new maternity unit will be linked to the children’s hospital that will replace Yorkhill. A link will also exist between the maternity, the children’s and the new adult hospital. An underground tunnel will provide access to the laboratories serving all three units. Work on the new laboratories started in March. When finished the entire site will have 1109 in-patient beds to serve the south side of Glasgow as well as Clydebank, Bearsden and Milngavie patients who will access the hospital via the Clyde Tunnel.