News


CCGsmerge forbeer care


AMAJORchange is beingmade in commissioning and providing Maidstone area local health serv- ices “in an endeavour to respond to population needs”. For six years this has been the re-


sponsibility of the budget-holding GP-led NHS West Kent Clinical CommissioningGroup (CCG). Be- fore thatMaidstonewas served by a primary care trust. But theplan nowis that the eight


CCGs coveringKent andMedway willmerge, toprovide a leadership systemand strategicmore cost-ef- fective commissioning. The struc- ture could be in place by 2020. In addition there will be about


four integrated care partnerships serving Kent and Medway to en- sure the needs of the local popula- tion are met, including one for Maidstone area and the rest of West Kent. There will also be a larger num- ber of primary care networks


aligning local health, social, com- munity and primary care. Dr Bob Bowes (pictured), chair-


man ofNHSWest Kent CCG (pic- tured), said: “Kent and Medway have been working towards a greater integration of commission- ing services to respondbetter to the local health needs of the popula- tion. In the comingmonthswewill work with all CCG members to agree the bestway forward.”


Cancer caremisses targets


MAIDSTONE andTunbridgeWells hospital trust is still seriously missing cancer targets – andWestKentCCGcontinues itsharmre- viewprocess. To date there has been no example of patient harm due to de-


lays. The national target for treatment within 62 days fromdiagno-


sis is 95% of patients but the trust achieved only 63.3% in Janu- ary.


Ambulance times failing


LOCAL ambulance services aremissing all the newnational tar- gets covering life-threatening, urgent and non-urgent calls. For the two most urgent categories the under-performance by


SECAmb is at least twominutes.A joint NHS service investiga- tion is taking place.


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