Health Service Forum South East

Minutes of regular meeting of Health Service Forum S.E. held in the Larkfield Centre on Tuesday 10 February 2004 at 7.30 p.m.

Contents

Apologies

Minutes

Correspondence

Financial Report

Report on GGNHS Board Meeting 17^th Feb 2004

Apologies

Apologies were received from Margaret Hinds, Douglas McGregor, Aileen Fyfe, James Sandeman,

Fiona Brodie, Alva Caldwell, Dorothy Walls, Irene Addie, Dan MacPhail.

Eric Canning was in the Chair and welcomed everyone.

Minutes

The minutes of the meeting of the 13^th January were approved and adopted as correct. There were no matters arising.

Correspondence

1.   GP Registrar training; Dr Hunter of NHS Education has offered to speak at a Health Forum meeting and has agreed to attend the regular meeting on Tuesday 9^th March.

2.   A letter was received from Carolyn Leckie SSP MSP looking for our support and assistance. Carolyn feels there is a need for a national meeting of interested parties in the various aspects of health provision. It was agreed that a letter should be sent expressing interest in the idea.

3.   A Working Forum sponsored by Save Stobhill Campaign is to be held on Saturday 6^th March to

a)   share concerns/about loss of consultant led services

b)   formation of an umbrella organisation

c)   to develop a national plan to present to the First Minister  and the Health Minister.

Margaret Hinds has responded and several Forum members will attend.

4.   Eric Canning had received a copy of an advertisement placed by the GGNHS Board in the European Journal for a team composed of Architects, surveyors, engineers etc to form a team of experts. The Forum has written to Sir John Arbuthnott to ask for the detailed remit of this team.

5.   There has been no reply to our letter of the 4 February addressed to Calum Kerr of the Scottish Ambulance Service regarding the employment of a paramedic in every ambulance. A reminder will be sent.

6.   A letter will be sent to Tom Divers Chief Executive GGNHS Board following the Herald article of the 7th February regarding ‘Emergency admissions to hospitals in Glasgow’ and the dilemma of patients waiting on trolleys for a bed to become available.

Financial Report

Financial report: the balance in the bank is £1750.59. There are outstanding accounts for the replacement printer/scanner for the chairman and the cost of postage of the minutes.

Secretary’s Report
In a conversation with City Council Land Services we learned that the GGNHS Board are still working on the traffic impact of the new ACAD on the area . With the closure of Annan Street in order to build the ACAD, an alternative roadway must be provided. The Health Board are in negotiation with City Council to purchase an additional piece of land at the QPR site.

Margaret Hinds and Louise Laing attended a Community Council meeting at Simshill to speak on the current situation with the GGNHS Board’s acute strategy.

The combined cost of the Stobhill and Victoria Acads has been revised upwards and is currently £191million.

There was no other competent business and the chairman closed the meeting.

Report on GGNHS Board Meeting 17^th Feb 2004

1. Partnership for Care - Scheme of delegation

The new Board comes into effect on 1^st April and will meet bi-monthly with an additional meeting in July to approve the accounts. The AGM  in November will be open to the public and there will be a further two open meetings during the session.

2.   2003/04 Financial monitoring report;

A shortfall of £10m is predicted

3.   Waiting times;

Sustaining the target achieved re 9 month  waiters is going to be challenging. A further £1.4m has been allocated to deliver additional activity by the end of March.

4.   Transfer of medical oncology inpatient beds from the St Mungo unit, Glasgow Royal Infirmary; Tim Davison explained that the unit has been running with two consultants one of whom has frequently off sick and has now taken early retirement. One consultant to seven beds is not safe. He was not aware that Ward 10 is a mixed sex ward and will look into this issue.

On Sunday 22^nd February, BBC Radio Scotland, Reporter Raymond Buchanan introduced a programme about the NHS 24 organisation. The programme to establish NHS 24 was started in May 2002 and by the end of 2004 will cover all of Scotland at a cost of £40 million. At present 15,000 calls are handled each week by call handlers who take details and pass the caller to a nurse.

To date there has been no change in the workload for GPs. There may be fewer phone calls to surgery but the number of consultations/visits has not diminished. The demands on the A&E service have increased. There is an increase in emergency admissions especially with chest pains, often unnecessary. (GPs would have stabilised with simple medication) The establishment of NHS 24 at this time was questioned. The service has  taken highly skilled and trained nurses from the hospitals when there is a national shortage. The cost of £40m was also queried. Is this the best use of resources?

In defence of the service Brian Robson, the Director of NHS 24, said that the service is not in competition but is in partnership with the Boards. There is an increase in part-time working for nurses who work in both

NHS 24 and in hospital. He stated that the main public need is for access to advice and care.

Reports on the following meetings will be given at the next meeting;

1.   10^th February Margaret Hinds, Douglas McGregor and James Sandeman attended a meeting held in the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons chaired by Kirsty Wark.

2.   On Wednesday 3 March Aileen Fyfe, the Forum’s  representative, will attend the Trust meeting.

3.   The South Monitoring Group will meet on Friday 5^th March.

4.   Dr Jean Turner has organised a national meeting to discuss NHS problems on Saturday 6^th March.

The date of the next meeting is Tuesday 9^th March at 7.30 p.m. Dr Colin Hunter of NHS Education for Scotland will address the meeting on GP registrar recruitment.

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