CARES at the PPI Meeting - 11th May 2006
A Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) meeting was held on Thursday 11th May 2006 at St Georges Hall Lord St Southport.
Jonathon Parry (NHS Chief Executive) was the guest speaker and spoke at length on the problems facing the NHS at present; these were his thoughts rather than speaking on behalf of the NHS.
Jonathon Parry addressing the committee
Mr Parry stated that the funding system is changing to payment by results i.e.
tariff for everybody they treat and they have to achieve FT status by 2008 /
2009.
The Trusts need financial balance by March 2007. This will mean analysing
efficiencies and looking at savings. He wondered if it would in the future
displace the PPI.
Mr Parry talked about cancer research and thought that patients should be
consulted on where they wanted to go. He said the cancer work that is tending to
centralise major cancer operations away from Southport and into Liverpool is
called Improving Outcomes Guidance (IOG). He does believe that there has not
been sufficient consultation on the effects of IOG on local hospitals such as
our own and the effect of patients and visitors having to travel further.
He covered GPs and Practice Based Conditioning. The new choice agenda included
marketing plans and customer feedback.
Part of the PPI committee
Mr Parry said that he thought clinical alliances with a larger teaching hospital
would be beneficial. He said it was time a final decision was made on the
“temporary closure of the midwife led unit” at Southport. Regarding finances he
said one unit that did actually make a profit was a minor injuries unit.
When asked if it was true that the Adult A&E at Town Lane was going to Ormskirk,
Mr Parry responded that the proposals were not sensible, but they need to find
ten million pounds so it could not be ruled out completely
Mr Parry believes the government plan to have a PPI for each PCT only. This, he
believes, would threaten hospital based PPIs but that is only his
‘interpretation’ and is by no means certain.