The news that the Bassett Road Clinic will be developed to provide additional services with the provision of an extra 7 rooms later this year and early feedback coming from our surgeries regarding the positive benefits of E-Consult is having are very encouraging, but we still need assurances of the level of improvement these initiatives will deliver over the coming years.
The overall impression is this should only be a “stop gap” as we are still a town without a long-term strategic plan to meet our ever growing and aging population who may not be able to access all the options that new technologies offer.
We have noted over the past few months that a significant number of the key personnel who had assigned the Towns Primary healthcare Investment as a low priority over the years, are now leaving the trust including, The Chair of the BLMK ; Chief Primary Care Officer ; Head of Primary Care Development & Transformation and at the CBC the Head of Partnerships and Performance for Social Care Health and Housing just as the Government announced their major reforms for Management within NHS England and the highly critical Darzi Report.
Whilst we await confirmation of the new appointments tasked with implementing these key policy initiatives, what we are witnessing is contradictory narratives from policy makers that appeared in recent Leighton Buzzard Observer Articles.
In the Outline Business Case the BLMK stated “Health Provision in our Town is better provided (compared to the rest of the country)”, followed the same week with an acknowledgement that “Primary health care facilities across Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes need over £180 million to get capacity to “average”?
The Central Bedfordshire Executive flipped from stating at a recent Meeting that they have no responsibility for healthcare unless the ICB identifies the need and then are quoted as claiming “Accessing health facilities near where we live is vital to ensure we stay healthy for longer, and to reduce the need for people to go to hospital.”
Even Vapekit were quoted as being highly critical with “research that revealed the areas in England with the worst experience at booking a GP appointment, was Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes’ Integrated Care Board.
I can only image the reaction of a hard-working GP receiving criticism from a company whose products may ultimately add to the NHS burden.
But the BLMK response was to state the study relied on out-of-date figures.
Our reminder for all new stakeholders will be: we do have one of the worst GP to Patient Ratios in England and when will Central Bedfordshire communities see plans that recognize the need to add health infrastructure as an integral part of Housing Development?