NORTH HACKNEY PATIENT INFORMATION EVENING NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY 2013

Thank you to everyone (staff and patients) who took part in our North Hackney Patient Evening. Over 45people attended and we almost ran out of space!

We started with a presentation from Chloe Davies (North Hackney Co-Deputy Lead) about how GP care will be structured from April 2013. Jaime Bishop, City & Hackney Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Lay Board Member, then led a discussion/presentation with the help of Chair, Amaia Portelli (Practice Manager at Barton House Group Practice), about these changes from a patient perspective and how patients can get involved. Patients raised many issues, concerns and views on the current and future structure of the NHS.

So much was said by so many people it would not all fit into one newsletter. So here are the key issues raised and the responses to them:

  • Concerns were expressed over the NHS being privatised.

Due to “Any Qualified Provider” being allowed to bid for contracts private companies can be awarded them but the CCG constitution has been written in order to minimise procuring services this way.

  • Issues concerning whether GPs are trained to commission (“buy”) services from other providers.

Dr Krishnamurthy (GP Partner at Heron Practice) explained all GPs who work at the CCG are provided with clear guidance, support and training on how to commission effectively.

  • Patients expressed concerns over GPs being taken away from their clinical work by their work for the CCG.

GPs who work for the CCG either do so in their own time or their practice is financially remunerated so they can pay another doctor to cover the clinical time lost.

  • Patients did not realise that some diagnostic services were being provided by private company InHealth. Some would prefer not to use private services at all.

There is currently a project called “Keep Our NHS Public” which is focused on keeping private companies out of the NHS. If patients want to know more their website is

  • Cuts to City and Hackney’s budget.

All areas of public funding have to make cuts and review expenditure and our CCG is the same. Patients can help make sure funding is spent in the most productive way by feeding back negative AND positiveexperiences/comments to the CCG. This informs the CCG what services are/are not working for patients. Negative comments can be used by the CCG to performance manage underperforming providers. Positive comments are also important so services which patients find valuable are not threatened. Details of how to feedback can be seen at the end of this newsletter.

To contact the CCG to express any concerns positive or negative regarding NHS services please:

Email on:

(This email is likely to change at the end of March 2013. Please see the website for an up-to-date email address.)

By post at: NHS City and Hackney CCG

Second Floor Lawson Practice

Nuttall Street

London

N1 5HZ.

Telephone: 020 7683 4192

OR

If you just like to find out more about City & Hackney CCG please visit their website

We will be holding another North Hackney Patient Event later this year. Please let your local GP surgery know if you are interested so they can contact you with details nearer the time.

Feb 2013