The Humber Acute Services Review Steering Group met on 6th February 2019 to review progress on the review and discuss next steps for the teams involved in conducting the review.

Programme Update

As set out in the previous update paper, the review is currently focusing on six specialties:

• Critical Care
• Cardiology
• Specialist Rehabilitation
• Neurology
• Oncology
• Stroke

All of the specialties now have a detailed intelligence pack that has been produced using the Trust data and the available public health data for the Humber region. In addition, a one page case for change has been produced for each specialty, which outlines the priorities, risks, concerns and areas to develop for each clinical area.

These documents have been developed collaboratively with the clinical and operational teams over the last 2 months.

A workshop has been held for each specialty which has focussed on the services’ current state, with the clinical teams identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats/areas not for change. Once these areas have been identified work has been completed to identify the potential future 5/10yr state for each clinical area in line with NHS England’s ‘Long Term Plan’.

This has focussed on:

• Where could patients be treated and how may this differ from our current service locations and infrastructure?
• What technological / clinical advancements may arise within those timeframes?
• Who will require our care? How may this differ from patients we currently see? How might their expectations and requirements be different?
• How will our workforce be different? How might roles change, or availability of skills be different?
• Interdependencies with other specialties and any potential requirements from them to support future models

The next set of clinical meetings will be taking place throughout February and March. These clinical workshops will support the specialty teams to produce draft proposals for their service area by April, for wider discussion with partners.

The high-level case for change that was developed in January 2018 is being refreshed and updated in more detail to encompass transformation priorities for all services. This will be completed by the end of March and will form the basis for a more comprehensive clinical strategy for acute services across the Humber.

 

Engagement and Involvement

Patient, public and staff engagement remains a key priority for the review team.

A Citizen’s Panel to support the review has been formed. The panel held its first meeting on 12th December 2018, the purpose of which was to brief panel members about the Acute Review and their role in supporting our engagement work. The role of the Citizen’s Panel will be to listen to, discuss and make recommendations on the scenarios and potential solutions presented and to ensure that the needs of the wider local community are reflected in any recommendations made. The panel will meet again in March to discuss any emerging thinking in relation to the specialties currently under review ahead of proposals being finalised.

Specialty-specific focus groups with patients and carers have also been taking place over recent weeks. To date three workshops have taken place with a further two planned for 6th and 7th March (further details are available online: https://humbercoastandvale.org.uk/get-involved/#events). The first two workshops (in Grimsby and Willerby) discussed with patients their experiences of cardiology and critical care services in the Humber area and explored key challenges and priorities for improvement. A third workshop took place in Goole, looking at neurology, stroke and complex rehabilitation services. When all five workshops have taken place, a summary of the feedback gathered will be uploaded to the review website.

In addition, the review is working with a local voluntary sector partner, Humber and Wolds Rural Action, to undertake targeted community engagement with existing local groups who might not otherwise get involved. Over the coming weeks they will be visiting a number of existing local community groups to raise awareness of the review and how people can get involved as well as finding out vital information about the impact of health service changes on different individuals and communities.

 

Commissioning

The four Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in the Humber are currently recruiting to a new role of Director of Collaborative Acute Commissioning, which will be primarily responsible for the delivery of the joint approach of commissioning acute services across the four Humber CCGs. This new post will play a key role in the Acute Services Review and be responsible for developing and designing services to meet the needs of the populations in the geographies of the Humber CCGs. This move also supports the broader transformation in Commissioning, as highlighted in the NHS Long Term Plan, to a more strategic and efficient commissioning model.