Health Service Forum South East
Minutes of a regular meeting of the Health Service Forum S.E. held on the 13 May 2008 in the Larkfield Centre
Contents
Welcome
CHCP South East Glasgow
Our Comment
Apologies
Minutes
Proposed New South Acute Hospital
Correspondence
Subscriptions
Car Parking at SGH
Date of Next Meeting
The Chairman Margaret Hinds welcomed members to the meeting and introduced Cathy Cowan Director, and Una Fingleton, public involvement officer, of the CHCP South East Glasgow.
The South East covers Gorbals, East Pollokshields, Govanhill, Toryglen, Shawlands, Battlefield, Kingspark, Croftfoot, Castlemilk, Carmunnock
As Director of the one of the five CHCPs in the Glasgow area Ms Cowan gave a very concise explanation of the very extensive remit of the organisation that is answerable both to the Glasgow City Council and the NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde. Their budget is £100 million pounds and they employ 1000 staff. A committee of fifteen people including two members of the public meet bi-monthly.
Six themes have been developed:
a) supporting children and families in communities.
b) co-ordinating services better so that vulnerable adults (such as elderly and disabled) can live normal lives in their community.
c) creating opportunities to work, new projects, and schemes, skills and income in places where people can live, work and succeed.
d) improving local environments and making them places where people feel safe and want to live.
e) connecting people and services from different communities by developing a shared understanding of each other, and by sharing knowledge and skills.
f) training and developing our managers and staff to provide and support changes to our service and new ways of working with our main partner organisations.
Ms Cowan took questions from the audience on the running and financing of the partnership. It was drawn to her attention that an ambulance journey is far from comfortable. We were assured that the vehicles have good suspension and that we could take the matter up with the Scottish Ambulance Service. Several concerns were raised about the lack of training of carers who attend the elderly and vulnerable. There are undoubtedly some excellent workers but also some very poor ones. Instances were cited. Ms Cowan said that poor care should be reported to Jaqueline Torrens on 0141 276 6700
web site www.chcps.org.uk/southeastglasgow
Ms Cowan and Ms Fingleton were thanked for attending and giving so much of their time.
The remit of CCHP’s seems enormously wide and we would question the feasibility of the co-ordination of such a wide range of responsibilities and the varied strands of all of their clients needs to their satisfaction. We already have instances of communication break down between GPs, Social Work, Hospitals, and Care Homes.
Apologies were received from Irene Addie, Dorothy Walls, Douglas McGregor, Alastair Glen,David Smith.
The minutes of the 8 April meeting were approved and the adoption proposed by James Sandeman seconded by Alva Caldwell.
There were no matters arising.
Margaret Hinds asked Eric Canning to give his views about the building of the new adult South Acute Hospital .The proposed new South Acute Hospital will, together with enlarged existing units and facilities already on site and commissioned, be certainly one of the biggest if not the biggest in the United Kingdom. The on-site works will require military style logistical planning and when completed will need management on a scale not previously experienced in Scotland.
Conscious of the experience of the gross mismanagement of the building of the Scottish Parliament,
Scotland cannot afford a similar situation with the new South Acute Hospital that has a budget of at least twice that of the Parliament building. The project manager of the new hospital has advised that 2.8% of the total cost of the new build will be spent on the piling foundations to reach a solid rock face. This seems a very low estimate for a fourteen storey building on such a difficult site. Inclusive of the piling, ground beams and basal platform a figure of 5% of total costs would seem a more realistic figure.
Reply from Robert Calderwood answering our letter re disposition of out patient clinics.
1. S.E and SW. IN ESSENCE all routine day surgery will be provided at the Vic, all inpatient care both routine and complex will be at SGH.
2. Small elements of day surgery care provided as part of the range of services being DEVELOPED in the SGH to which SE and SW residents will attend as with residents from other parts of NHSGG and Clyde.
3.Vast majority of out-patient clinics for SW residents will be provided at SGH, but some specialist clinics will be centralised at the Vic e.g. special breast care.
4 .The disposition of these services remain under review but the planning assumptions as set out above remain. They will seek to provide the maximum amount of services locally accessible.
Reply from Jim Crombie, Diagnostics Director, re delays in getting samples to Southern General laboratories resulting in the samples being useless for testing for certain substances.
Mr Crombie assures us that when the integrated service was created pick up times from GP surgeries were altered and heavier users are getting extra pick up during the day. As a result there has been an improvement in the service. In February this year only 1.9% were delayed as compared with 2.3% in February 2007.
At the AGM on the 8 April 2008 it was decided that the dues would remain at the same level.
£5 for individual membership and £25 for Group membership.
We trust that you will want to renew your membership and continue to receive updates on the progress of the Acute Services Strategy. There is much that we can still do to influence the planning of services for the south side.
The Evening Times reported that on-street parking in the Earlston Park Estate that backs on to the SGH has become intolerable to residents since the start of parking charges on the Hospital site. A meeting to discuss this problem will take place on the 3 June at the Walton Centre, SGH, attended by Nicola Sturgeon MSP for Govan and Health Minister. Is the situation equally intolerable for Cathcart residents in the vicinity of the Victoria?
The date of the next meeting is
Tuesday 10 June at 7.30 p.m. in the Larkfield Centre
Alistair Watson of the Strathclyde Passenger Transport will be our
guest speaker
