We are sorry to say that Brent Patient Voice has discovered from personal experience that the 2 new cardiology clinics at Willesden and Wembley Centres for Health and Care which opened in March 2015 are some way from being up to scratch. One of our number, referred in June 2015 for an urgent consultation, was offered an appointment 62 days later instead of within the…
“What’s the point? They never take any notice of what we say” is a very common response when we invite people to become involved in local NHS issues. However it is not always the case, as some of us have discovered over the last two years in working through the CCG EDEN Committee and now through Brent Patient Voice. Peter Latham, a member of the…
The main reason for Brent Patient Voice coming in to being when it did was the decision of Brent CCG last December to abolish its EDEN Committee. EDEN included all 5 elected Chairs of the Locality Patient Participation Groups (LPPGs) and 8 representatives of the community who were concerned with particular area such as long term conditions, carers, younger people, the elderly and mental health.…
Further to our earlier story “Brent CCG U-turn ?” we are sorry to say that all CCG work with partners and patients on MSK (musculoskeletal) and gynaecology outpatients services seems to have disappeared without trace. The BPV proposal that the CCG should call a roundtable of all interested parties has been rejected in an email of 11 June from Sarah German, Assistant Director for Acute…
Those who attended the Mansfield Healthcare Commission hearings at the Brent Civic Centre on 9 May were not searched for weapons on entry. However it came as a big surprise when Dr Hirst, a member of the Enquiry panel, described written evidence from 4 PPG Chairs and, separately, from Gaynor Lloyd and Keith Perrin as being like a stiletto and hatchet respectively being driven into…
Meeting on 20 April Brent CCG Equality Diversity and Engagement (EDEN) Committee approved with no opposition two motions from BPV members, one supported by the BPV Interim Position Statement on the discontinuance of the Wave 2 procurement processes. Professor Ursula Gallagher, CCG Governing Body Nursing Member, who is about to leave the CCG said that the CCG approves the spirit and principle of our motion…
Brent Clinical Commissioners decided at the end of March to discontinue their current procurement exercise for community-based MSK and gynaecology services – read the Brent CCG letter here. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? BPV issued a statement, proposing a positive step to move forward on behalf of patients. The CCG agreed to consider our proposal.
Why we need to become more active. Would you believe that at a hustings event in Queens Park for the Hampstead and Kilburn Constituency (which covers part of Brent) on 9 April none of the 4 candidates present knew about the 2012 NHS NW London plan for reorganising hospitals and closing 4 A&E Departments called Shaping a Healthier Future? They did not know that Central…
Successful launch of new body to speak for Brent patients “My dream is of a fully patient-centred Health Service.” These were the words of Dr Michelle Drage, CEO of 6,000 GPs in the London-wide Local Medical Committees, as she gave the keynote address to the inaugural meeting of Brent Patient Voice at the Learie Constantine Centre last week. She argued that to realise their full…