Wolverhampton Patient Advisory Cancer Team

(PACT)

Notes of a Meeting held on Wednesday, 14 January 2015 - 10.00-12.30 pm

at ‘The Beeches’, Penn Hospital, Penn Road, Wolverhampton

PRESENT: David Hellyar (DH) Acting Chair

Robin Comley (RC) Treasurer

Diane Wright (DW) Patient

Sheila Varian (SV) Patient

David Rowlands (DR) Lead Cancer Clinician - RWHT

Dawn Matthews (DM) ‘F2’ Doctor

Jacqui Cutler (JC) Minutes

APOLOGIES: James Owen, Dr Manny Samra, Anna Lynall,

Pat Roberts, Janet Aldridge, Jean Hancox,

Kate Fernandez

1. Introduction and Apologies

David welcomed everyone to the group, who included Dawn Matthews who is an ‘F2’ Doctor, and had attended the last meeting in November. David Hellyar read out a letter he had received from Jean Hancox. She said that she was tendering her resignation from the group. Jean was rather disenchanted with the way things were in the NHS and the Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust, although she would continue to work in other arenas. She wished PACT all the best for the future.

2. Minutes of previous Meeting

These were agreed as correct.

3. Matters Arising

* Macmillan Primary Care Nurse

DH had written to Marika Hills saying that he and the rest of the group were more than happy to support this new post. It had been needed for a long time. He had also written to Ranjit Kumar.

He would also now write to/email both Ranjit and Marika to find out more information about the role and how it was going to work, as the Nurse who had been appointed was starting in January.

There was perhaps also, the need to show that there were concerns that although the Macmillan Primary Care Nurse post was funded for 3 years, it was important that it should continue if possible, beyond this.

* Cancer Psychology and Counselling Service

David Hellyar had written to Sarah Fellows about the service, and the presentation by Sophie Gwinnett that we had been given in November. He had asked her for information about any intentions for securing this service into the future. As of today, it had been a month since he had written to Sarah Fellows, and as yet, he had not heard back from her. He did not know if this was a normal amount of time to wait, although perhaps she also had to contact and talk to others involved.

David Rowlands said that he and the RWHT were putting together a business case, but they had been told that although it was Cancer Services who were involved, it should to be handed to the Mental Health Foundation Trust, as they would be responsible for putting together the case to secure the service. DH said that there were then, 3 interested /concerned parties: The RWHT (Cancer Services), PACT and the Mental Health Foundation Trust.

DH asked DR if it was worth PACT contacting the Black Country Foundation Trust, based in West Bromwich (who pays Sophie Gwinnett)? David Rowlands said he would find out from Gaynor from RWHT, who the contact there might be.

* National Peer Review

Robin had received a reply from his MP in Shropshire about this. DH had also received a reply/letter via Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton MP) from Jeremy Hunt, in response to David Hellyar’s letter to him. In the letter it implied that Peer Review still had a part to play in the Conservatives plans for the NHS. RC said that this issue was raised at the last Group 23 Meeting, with Sian Hallewell, and that they would be looking at the matter of Peer Review at their next meeting.

DR (for the RWHT at New Cross) said they are still doing their bit and submitting data, etc, but they had had no response this last year. He said that they would carry on their work linked in with the” public facing” side of monitoring services, like the My Cancer Treatment website. He feared though, that the database that they submitted data/stats to (acronym SEQUINS), might/would be going. The general signs they had observed/experienced indicated that the Peer Review process would be coming to an end.

RC said that he had spoken to a Kate Blanchett and they were hoping to extend the tenets of the Group 23 into other health areas such as ‘Heart and Lung’.

DR said they, as RWHT would do what they always had done, and would welcome any external visits, but were concerned there was not/or might not in future be a National Peer Review, and no-one to feed back to/oversee the good things that had been achieved by the Peer Review Process.

Connected to this, the group then discussed the wider role of PACT, and the merits of a collaborative compared to a confrontational approach for the group. There then followed discussion about Consultation v Collaboration when dealing with bodies/government. There seemed to be a general feeling that these bodies worked in “consultation” not “collaboration”, whereas DR said, certainly with RWHT it used to be much more a collaborative process and that David Loughton would have come and talked to a group like PACT, but David Rowlands said he could not see that happening now. DH felt this attitude was shown during the Public Consultations over the joining of New Cross and Cannock Chase Hospital. They were not really interested in what the (local) public thought or felt, and that they (RWHT) had already made up their mind about what was going to happen.

Diane suggested that when there are more members present at a future meeting, we give further discussion/consideration to the role of PACT into the future.

4. RWHT update – David Rowlands

DH said that he was concerned at a story in the ‘Express & Star’ (about a month or so ago) about a patient who was having Chemotherapy treatment at New Cross, having to be seen in a corridor. DR said that he thought that this was part of something that had now been addressed and it was a “one off”, due to space/demand somewhere else. DW said she understood it was just one person. Diane said she had been asked by the Breast Care Group, to ask DR if the Trust are meeting targets in this area. He said that in 2013 they were, but 2014 had been a much more problematic year. People had been off sick, and there had been problems with equipment. Generally, their main problem at New Cross was that people were being referred from other areas which put extra pressure on services/equipment (such as Radiology) and meant that they hadn’t been meeting the accepted targets. For Breast, they had been doing extra clinics, such as Saturday and evenings etc to address the problems they have/have had. They had also lost one excellent, fast working Surgeon to the Royal Marsden Hospital, and it was hard to find a replacement easily.

5. Cannock Chase Hospital - update

Up until the 1 November 2014 when New Cross and Cannock had “joined forces” there had been a lot of meetings about how the new services would work. The plan with ‘Skin’ had been that they would have a single unit at Cannock. They had been working out of Stafford and Cannock, but they were moving towards just Cannock now. There had been a lot of work, and confusion, between Wolverhampton New Cross and Cannock Hospitals (and linking in with Stafford and Stoke) about who went where/was seen where). Colo-rectal surgery that would have been done at Stafford (on Cannock patients) is now being done at Wolverhampton.

DR said that with regard to ‘Head & Neck’ there were 4 sites/centres across the larger Midlands, but there were plans to move things around. He said that RWHT would like Shropshire to join with Wolverhampton for this site area. It was a lot easier for Shropshire patients to come to Wolverhampton rather than travel to Stoke, if and when these Shropshire services close.

6. Cancer ‘Summit’ with Paul Uppal

David Hellyar asked if there was anything that we would like to pursue that had come out of this day as outlined in the report from the event (that all members had received with last month’s Minutes). There was nothing outstanding. Nothing had happened since the ‘Summit’ in November, and DH felt it was really an exercise for Paul Uppal, as he was to be “charged” with ‘Health’ in the writing of the Tory Manifesto for the next General Election.

7. Any Other Business

DH had heard in the news about a “shake-up” in Health services, specifically Cancer. Was this with GPs or Cancer Services? DW said she thought this was the story about people (in Europe) going straight to a hospital with their symptoms, and then been diagnosed with Cancer there. Was that happening here? i.e. GPs were missing Cancers. There was also research that had been done in this Country that amongst the 18-35 age group, if they couldn’t get an immediate appointment with their GP, they would go to A&E with their symptoms and concerns.

As there was no further business, the meeting adjourned.

8. Date of the next Meeting

Wednesday, 25 February 2015 from 10.00 to 12.30 pm at ‘The Beeches’, Penn Hospital.

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