HEALTH FORUM
28TH APRIL 2003

The next three years of the Primary Care Trust

The Forum Meeting was arranged in coooperation with the Merton and Sutton Primary Care Trust. Trusts are now required to prepare three year plans to achieve a range of nationally set objectives. The financial context of this planning is that health trusts will be receiving increased budgets which will be one third greater than the present ones by the end of the three year period. This funding increase will have four main objectives.
1. Improved pay scales and structures to improve recruitment and retention of staff. A serious potential shortage in the future is apparent due to retirement ofexperienced staff.
2. Reducing queues in healthcare. Clearing existing logjams and maintaining improvement.
3. Improved asvailibility and control on the use of medecines for which demand is increasing by 12% per year due to more and more expensive drugs
4. Access to emergency and other services. All patients should be seen and discharged or transferred to a ward within 4 hours. In Primary care a patient should be able to see nurses and GPs without undue delay and treatment for minor incidents should be available in Primary Care centres.

Local priorities for the Primary care Trust are
1. To cooperate with the Epsom and St Helier Trust so that only care and treatment which must be in a large hospital should be there. Diagnostic Tests – Xrays, Blood tests etc should be done locally. Consultant follow up appointments should be done nearer to patients homes etc
2. Isolation of Primary Care services should be ended, GPs, District nurses and other services shoud be provided from integrated Primary Care centres.
3. Establishment of Community Hospitals– Nelson, Wilson and Sutton etc- as locations for these Services
4. Cooperation with other Trusts to achieve quickker and more flexible funding of the development of premises under public private partnership than is possible under present PFI arrangements which can take up to five years.

A wide range of topics arose questions and discussions. These included.
1. The value of exercise and improved diet in improving health and cheaply reducing health costs
2. The use and prescribing of drugs. Futher nurse traing for prescribing. Maximum use of Generic drugs
3. Improvements in services and better integration. Integrated support for those caring for the terminally ill at home – GP availibility, Nursing services, pharmacies. Availibility of appropriate preventive medecine services.
4. Organisation and financing. Is a one third increase in funding sufficient in view of the history of underfunding compared with other European countries and the consequent maintenance backlog. The opinion was expressed that although diagnostic services are better in Europe, acute services are frequently better under the NHS.The introduction of Primary Care Trusts enables a a untiy of services previously impossible.

The Health Forum is most grateful to the Primary Care Trust for agreeing to hold such an open, informative and stimulating meeting for us.