More chances to hear about improved NHS services, and to have your say
Monday 28th February, 2011
The fourth public meeting being held as part of formal consultation process around plans to improve NHS services in West Sussex will take place in Shoreham.
The meeting will allow people to hear more about how clinical staff believe they can improve hospital and community care in the county, to ask questions, and to express their views about what they hear.
The proposed changes, called “Service Redesign for Quality in West Sussex – Our proposals for better care”, are specifically designed to produce better community services, and improved inpatient orthopaedic, elderly care and eye services at St Richard’s, Worthing and Southlands hospitals.
Clinicians have drawn up the plans in a bid to make patients safer, improve the quality of care, reduce the number of times patients need to be transferred between hospitals, and reduce the amount of time staff spend travelling between sites.
The 12-week consultation process is being run jointly by NHS West Sussex and Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which manages the three hospitals involved.
The next meeting will be held from 6.30-8.30pm on 3 March, at the Shoreham Centre, on Pond Road in Shoreham.
After that there will be further public meetings at Littlehampton Town Council (10 March), Worthing Hospital (15 March), and at Southwick Community Centre (22 March), all starting at 6.30pm.
Under the plans, major orthopaedic operations will now all take place close to critical care facilities, ophthalmology services will be provided in new state-of-the-art locations, and elderly care will be in one place, ending the need for patients to be transferred between sites. There will also be new community beds, and extra support from GPs and other medical staff to support people in their own home.
Specifically, the proposals include:
- Relocating inpatient orthopaedics from Southlands to Worthing Hospital
- Relocating inpatient elderly care from Southlands to Worthing Hospital
- Providing an extra 60 beds at Worthing Hospital
- Building two new ‘laminar flow’ operating theatres for orthopaedic surgery at Worthing Hospital
- Developing Southlands Hospital as a centre for outpatients, diagnostics and day surgery Relocating ophthalmology services from Worthing Hospital to Southlands and St Richard’s Hospitals
- Investing to provide new services and extra beds closer to people’s homes in the community, especially “step down” beds for people who have had a long stay in hospital
The formal public consultation process began on 7 February and will run until 29 April.
Visit www.westernsussexhospitals.nhs.uk for more details of the plans and future public meetings.
To find out more, to order a copy of the consultation document including the feedback form, or to make any comments, you can:
- Visit www.westernsussexhospitals.nhs.uk
- Call 01903 285222 ext 4038
- Email consultationfeedback@wsht.nhs.uk
