News | Health Budget forecast
WEST Kent Clinical Commission- ing Group says its current budget for healthcare is £489m a year. If it continues to deliver services
as now and meets new demands for care there will be a funding gap of about £60m by 2018/9. Healthcare costs directly attribut-
able to obesity, alcohol and smok- ing are estimated at more than £200m a year.
Teen pregnancy
MAIDSTONEremains the only dis- trict inWest Kent with an increase in teenage pregnancies, with high teenage conceptions in Shepway North, Shepway South, ParkWood and High Street wards.
Cost of obesity
THERE are an estimated 130,000 obese adults and 23,000 obese chil- dren inWest Kent, which will cost the NHS £278.5m next year. Localwards with more than 30% obesity are Shepway North, Shep- way South, High Street, ParkWood andAylesford.
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THE NHS 111 phone service has been operating for a year and, after a “poor” start there has been “con- siderable improvement” and it is achieving national standards.
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Are hospitals too small to survive on their own?
ARE Maidstone Hospital, now re- duced to 398 beds, and Tunbridge Wells Hospital, with 515 beds, large enough to survive as NHS policies evolve? This is the subject of a report by
group chief officer Ian Ayres to the GP-led NHS West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group governing body.He says there has been a trend in recent years for policy-makers and others to believe smaller district general hospitals had a limited fu- ture and that mergers and closures were theway forward. “Recently the position nationally
on the future of small hospitals has shifted, with an acknowledgement that there is a role for small hospi- tals,” he added.
“This is important to West Kent because TunbridgeWells and Maid- stone, if considered individually, are medium/small hospitals. “Treated as two hospitalsworking together as a networked organisa- tion, this trust has a total of 913 beds, of which 735 are inpatient. This makes the trust comparable with medium/large hospitals.” He said the group had started to
work in partnership with Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells to develop a longer-term strategy to deliver the ambitions of “new secondary care” provided in hospital. This is set out in the group’s Mapping the Future document and an aim is to achieve a sustainable future for the trust. MrAyres referred to some recent
Diabetes centres on the way
CONSULTANT-led specialist services for diabetes will be available in four locations inWest Kent by December, says the NHSWest Kent Clinical Commissioning Group. Staff from many GP surgeries have completed specialist diabetes training for additional services, so more than 200,000 patients can re- ceive services in the community previously only available in hospital.
reports and quotes from Nigel Ed- wards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, saying: “Evidence that reconfiguration saves money is sparse and the cost benefit equation of extra travel, economic impact and outcomes is not understood well enough.” MrAyres said therewere thought
to be three key drivers for change: improved quality through centrali- sation of some specialist services (eg stroke, major trauma), seven-day working and transforming urgent and emergency care services. He said the three success criteria
for any hospital were: high-quality, safe services; workforce develop- ment and training; and affordability with tariff.
Small baby fears
LOW birth-weight babies have been reported in Boughton Monchelsea, Chart Sutton andWa- teringbury. West Kent Clinical Commission-
ing Group says thiswarrants inves- tigation as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse are among the causes.
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16 Malling June 2014
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