The Trust for Devizes is calling a Public Meeting to show why new house building in Devizes must be frozen. It reasons that air pollution created by traffic congestion has to be reduced before any more houses are built, because it is endangering public health and strangling the town’s trade and tourism. Devizes Health Matters supports the Trust in this.
The meeting will be on Wednesday 22nd June at 7:30pm in the Town Hall. Please attend if you can and hear more about why we agree that Wiltshire Council should do something urgently about this threat to our health.
DEVIZES HEALTH MATTERS MEETS SUE ROWLEY
On Monday 9th May, the Devizes Health Matters team met with Sue Rowley, Director of Nursing and Midwifery at Great Western Hospitals. It was a useful introductory meeting and we were impressed by Sue's open attitude and willingness to listen to what we had to say. She was sympathetic to our desire to have more health services available locally.
Sue made it clear that we will need to work closely with the GP consortium in East Wilts to ensure that they are aware of local feelings on services such as a Minor Injuries Unit. We are hoping to open that line of communication shortly.
OUTCOME OF TENDER PROCESS FOR COMMISSIONING HEALTH SERVICES
NHS Wiltshire announces today that the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been selected as the preferred provider for community health services in Wiltshire.
The announcement means that community-based NHS services for the whole of Wiltshire, plus maternity services for Bath & North East Somerset and parts of Somerset, will transfer to Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Services to patients will continue unchanged as this is a transfer of organisational responsibility and not a change to the way services are delivered or the places where they are provided. The transfer is subject to the completion of legal formalities between NHS Wiltshire and Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and approval of the transfer by Monitor (the independent regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts Monitor). Because of the preparatory work undertaken by the two organisations, neither of these processes is thought to pose particular difficulties.
COMMENTS ON HEALTH WHITE PAPER SUBMITTED TO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Devizes Health Matters has submitted comments on the White Paper. You can see the comments here.
PRIVATE MEMBERS DEBATE ON MINOR INJURIES SERVICES IN DEVIZES
Claire Perry managed to secure a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday 13 July at 1:30. You can watch again here, fast forward the player to 13:30. The outcome of the debate was not encouraging with no real change to the current arrangements until 2013 when the PCT will be abolished.
CLOSURE OF DEVIZES FAMILY HEALTH CENTRE CONFIRMED
Wiltshire NHS has confirmed that Devizes Family Health Centre will be moving to Devizes Hospital and the site in New Park Street is to be sold. Read the full article from the Gazette and Herald here
HANDS UP FOR DEVIZES HOSPITAL!
A good article in the Gazette and Herald about the public meeting. Click here to read the article.
PUBLIC MEETING ON THURSDAY JULY 1ST AT DEVIZES TOWN HALL
We held a public meeting on Thursday July 1st at the Town Hall to discuss health services. Over ninety people attended. Claire Perry, our new MP, addressed the meeting (click here to listen to her speech), and there were plenty of questions and discussion. The meeting was opportunely timed, as it fell between Claire's meetings with the Health Secretary and with Jeff James, the Chairman of Wilts NHS. We hope to publish some feedback from these meetings shortly.
PRIMARY CARE DEVELOPMENT FORGES AHEAD IN WESTBURY
Whilst Wiltshire PCT is uncertain about how to proceed in Devizes, the location of Westbury’s Primary Care Development was revealed to a gathering of about 70
residents at a Town Council meeting on 10 May 2010. The development will be located at Leigh Park, Westbury, on the opposite side of Mane Way from the local shops. Plans for the development have evolved through the work of a Steering Group with members drawn from NHS Wiltshire, the Westbury Group Practice, Patients’ Forum, League of
Friends and the Town Council.
The Primary Care Development (PCD) will include an extended modern GP surgery which combines the Eastleigh Surgery and the White Horse Surgery with a range of other health care services, all under one roof. The PCD will have a range of services including a minor surgery suite, x-ray, diagnostics etc