Why your local NHS needs to change

ABM University Health Board (ABMU) is today (Wednesday, May 16) launching a major engagement campaign – Why your local NHS needs to change -which looks at the issues facing NHS Wales and ABMU in particular, and the possible changes needed to improve it.

Like other Health Boards across Wales, ABMU will provide a plan to Welsh Government by the end of October 2012 about how ABMU will change and improve its local NHS to meet these challenges.

Through the Changing for the Better programme and workshops, ABMU has been considering how future ABMU NHS services could look for several months.

Hospital clinicians, GPs, local authority representatives, the voluntary sector, disability groups, patient and carer reference groups, Swansea University and the ABM Community Health Council are among those who are taking part.

These workshops are part of an engagement process aimed at involving a wide range of people from the start to ensure their ideas and views help form developing plans.

They are exploring what's needed to provide excellent and sustainable healthcare in the future in the ABMU area, set against the context of very challenging budgets.

The workshops are looking at seven key service areas:
Unscheduled Care
Maternity and Newborns
Children and Young People
Frail, Older People
Long Term Conditions
Staying Healthy
Planned Care

The Why your local NHS needs to change launch outlines the reasons why ABMU believe change is necessary, based on the work of these workshops.

Today’s launch follows the report issued last week by Professor Marcus Longley, Director of the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care, on the configuration of hospital services for Wales.

Whereas Professor Longley looked across Wales, ABMU has focused on the situation here in ABMU.

ABMU has produced both a 15-page booklet and a smaller summary leaflet; and the leaflet will be delivered to homes across the ABMU area in the coming weeks as well as libraries and ABMU’s own facilities.

There is also a 15-minute video and a series of smaller ‘chapter’ videos available on the ABMU YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/ABMULHB. The videos contain a series of short video blogs with doctors, nurses and patients talking about services.

Why your local NHS needs to change sets out the evidence for change and general direction ABMU expect services to go, but will not go into specific proposals. 

Over the summer and autumn, as part of the ongoing Changing for the Better process, ABMU will be working on detailed proposals. ABMU expect to begin consulting on specific service changes towards the end of the year.

YouTellUs™

Also being launched today is a web forum called YouTellUs™, which has been designed for ABMU by Swansea University’s College of Medicine.

ABMU is inviting all its staff and citizens to sign up to YouTellUs, so they can share their views about ABMU’s proposals, and their experiences of NHS services both now and over coming months.

Hamish Laing, Plastic Surgeon and Director of Clinical Strategy, said: “Why your local NHS needs to change describes the challenges we are facing here in ABMU if we are to provide safe and excellent services for everyone we look after. It is an important that everyone who uses the NHS now or might do so in the future takes time to read it.

“YouTellUs” is an exciting development and we hope as many people as possible take the time to sign up and let us have their views about what we are saying now and how we can really change our services for the better in the future. This is everyone’s chance to shape their local NHS services.”

David Ford, Director of Health Informatics at Swansea University, said: “YouTellUs is an innovative collaboration between the College of Medicine in Swansea and ABM University Health Board. We want everyone in ABMU, their families and friends to sign up to YouTellUs and tell us in complete confidence what they think of ABMU’s challenges and plans, and how they find their local NHS now and in the coming years.  

“This is a bold step by the Health Board and a fantastic opportunity for people to help influence the design of local services in the NHS. This is a long-term collaboration, aimed at making sure that people living in the ABMU area have their views heard. We are delighted to have been asked to help the Board with this work.”

This ABMU news item has been posted by Bethan Evans, Swansea University Public Relations Office, Tel: 01792 295049, or email: b.w.evans@swansea.ac.uk.