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Health Service Forum South East
Minutes of a regular meeting of the Health Service Forum S.E held in the Larkfield Centre on Tuesday
14 March 2006 at 7.30 p.m.
Contents
Scottish Health Campaigns Network
Welcome
Welcome: Margaret Hinds welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced the speaker, Professor Stuart Murray, Director of Postgraduate General Practice, NHS Education for Scotland.
The Professor distributed notes prior to addressing the subject of GP training. Opportunity was given for questions during and after his talk.
At present in the West of Scotland 50% of doctors undertake a 3 year training programme based in appropriate hospital specialities for 2 years and then a year as a GP Registrar. The other 50% undertake hospital posts in appropriate specialties then proceed to a national recruitment Greencard system which ensures their suitability for General Practice. There is no shortage of applicants for the 280 GP trainee posts in Scotland. This year 1700 applications were received.
The Herald of the 21 July 2005 quoted Dr Love, joint chairman of the Scottish General Practitioners’ Committee, as saying that he has been ‘arguing for some time now with the Scottish Executive that they really need to provide funding for a much greater number of trainees’.
Our comment; The stumbling block to training more GPs is lack of funding by the Scottish Executive There are more than sufficient doctors’ practices willing and able to provide the necessary training.
Professor Murray was thanked for his presentation before he left the meeting.
Apologies
Apologies: Elizabeth Bashir, Pat Lally, Alastair Glen
Minutes
Minutes of 14 February 2006 were adopted as correct.
Correspondence;
Correspondence;
Letter to Royal College of Nursing requesting a speaker for May/June meeting. Response received from Susan Watt who will attend the May meeting to address issues of recruitment, training etc.
Letter from Sir John Arbuthnott re demonstrating that the new ACADs are value for money. He stated that
“It is a requirement to demonstrate Value for Money for all PPP procurements. In the case of Greater Glasgow Ambulatory Care Projects the bodies responsible are Pricewaterhousecoopers (the Board’s external auditors) and Partnerships UK which operate on behalf of the UK Government Treasury”.
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer’s Report; the current amount in the bank is £1748.54
Transport Report
Transport Report; Prof McGregor has not yet received a reply to his letter querying the lack of meetings of the transport committee.
The South Monitoring Group
The South Monitoring Group will meet on Friday 24 March. The meeting was postponed because the chairman, Peter Mullan, was unable to attend and there is no vice chairman. We feel that a joint North/South meeting should be held as the issues and concerns are shared by both groups. We very much regret that although views are expressed there is no voting on issues raised.
Louise Laing and Dorothy Walls attended constituents ‘surgery’ held by Charlie Gordon, MSP for Cathcart. The conversation took place on the steps of the Couper Institute because the venue had suffered a fire earlier in the week and was closed to the public. After a heated discussion on the provision of a stand alone ACAD at the Victoria, Mr. Gordon advised that he has asked the Health Minister for information on the provision of beds for the elderly at the Southern General and was awaiting a reply. He will let us know the response.
Our concern is that only 48 rehabilitation beds are to be provided at the ACAD. This must mean that the remaining patients (around 160 number) from the Mansionhouse unit will have to be found a bed elsewhere.
CHP representatives
A training and development day for CHP representatives was held in Jury’s Hotel on 15 February and attended by Louise Laing. The attendees were mainly salaried employees of voluntary groups throughout Scotland. It was clear that although CHPs became established in April 2005 the CHPs are still evolving slowly. Only one CHP in the group attended by Louise had set up a Public Partnership Forum (PPF). It is not clear how the patient representative will be selected, whom they will represent, to whom they will be responsible and report. Other issues raised were who would pay for the outlays incurred by the rep and would there be alternate reps when the regular rep was unable to attend a meeting? One also wonders who will set the agenda for meetings and chair the meeting, record and distribute the minutes. If the PPF raises a query, passes a resolution etc what happens? If there are no queries or resolutions what will come out of a PPF meeting? Will it be just another talking shop?
Scottish Health Campaigns Network
The Scottish Health Campaigns Network (SHCN) held a meeting on the 25 February with guest speaker Allyson Pollock, Professor of Health Policy and Health Services Research at University College, London now working at Edinburgh University. The professor spoke about the privatisation of the NHS especially in England. Whilst the Scottish NHS is in the hands of the Scottish Executive policies are very much influenced by Westminster. A copy of her book entitled ‘NHS plc’ was purchased by the Forum. This book has been endorsed by Claire Rayner as ‘required reading for everyone who works in the biggest industry in the country and everyone that uses it.’
Lanarkshire United
Lanarkshire United are a newly formed campaign group against the reduction of A&E facilities from 3 to 2 and have joined the SHCN. Should Hairmyres Hospital lose the A&E there would be a knock on effect for Greater Glasgow residents. Many patients will clearly find it faster to travel to Hairmyres than to the Southern General once the Victoria Infirmary loses its A&E department.
Members of the SHCN are meeting with Andy Kerr, the Health Minister, on the 3 May.
Please make a note in your diary that Susan Watt of the Royal College of Nursing will speak to the Forum at our meeting on Tuesday the 9 May.
The AGM will be held at the next meeting on 11 April at 7.30 p.m. followed by the regular meeting.
