Local NHS public meeting

Free cancer prescriptions from today

As well as the introduction of free swimming for over-60s and under-16s which begins today, I want to flag up three extra Labour health initiatives that take effect today too.

The abolition of prescription charges for cancer patients

...available to anyone who is undergoing treatment for cancer, the effects of cancer, or the effects of cancer treatment. This should benefit up to 150,000 patients already diagnosed with cancer.

Free NHS Health Checks for everyone in England aged between 40-74

This is part of a national programme to identify people’s risk to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes. The preventative checks programme will be fully implemented by 2012/13. It is up to local NHS trusts like Wandsworth's to decide how the checks will be delivered; but they're likely to include GP surgeries, health centres and pharmacies so that as many people benefit as possible.

All NHS trusts offer MRSA screening

This will allow the NHS to reduce the chances of patients getting an MRSA infection, or passing MRSA onto another patient.

Today is April Fools Day, but just as swimming is now free for under 16s and over 60s, these are three practical measures that are no joke: they'll make a real difference to hundreds of thousands of people the length and breadth of the country.

Free cancer prescriptions from today

As well as the introduction of free swimming for over-60s and under-16s which begins today, I want to flag up three extra Labour health initiatives that take effect today too.

The abolition of prescription charges for cancer patients

...available to anyone who is undergoing treatment for cancer, the effects of cancer, or the effects of cancer treatment. This should benefit up to 150,000 patients already diagnosed with cancer.

Free NHS Health Checks for everyone in England aged between 40-74

This is part of a national programme to identify people’s risk to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and diabetes. The preventative checks programme will be fully implemented by 2012/13. It is up to local NHS trusts like Wandsworth's to decide how the checks will be delivered; but they're likely to include GP surgeries, health centres and pharmacies so that as many people benefit as possible.

All NHS trusts offer MRSA screening

This will allow the NHS to reduce the chances of patients getting an MRSA infection, or passing MRSA onto another patient.

Today is April Fools Day, but just as swimming is now free for under 16s and over 60s, these are three practical measures that are no joke: they'll make a real difference to hundreds of thousands of people the length and breadth of the country.

Why people aren't worried about the NHS anymore

Today's Daily Telegraph leads with the fact that half of women breast cancer sufferers in England survive the disease. 60,000 women, and 40,000 men diagnosed with colorectal cancer every single year now beat the disease and go on to have the same life expectancy as someone who has escaped the disease.

Opinion polls nowadays show that the NHS doesn't rank very highly when people are asked about issues that concern them - and the reason for that is not because the NHS has stopped being close to our national heart. It is because a decade of Labour investment in health has stopped the rot of decaying hospitals, pensioners dying on trolleys in halls, outrageously long waits for treatment and chronic shortages of doctors and nurses; and is now making a real difference on major health threats like cancer.

Of course there's a lot that isn't right in the NHS: the shocking news about neglect in Stafford Hospital is one recent example, and there will always be individuals who get failed by the health service.

But these new cancer figures are really significant - as is the fact that it is the Telegraph; hardly a paper sympathetic to Labour, that has announced them. And as the Telegraph report goes on to say, the real cause for optimism is that there is so much scope for doing even better in years to come, because we still don't have the survival rates of some of our European neighbours.

The NHS is safe in Labour's hands - and the fact that people have stopped worrying about it is a measure of how significant a difference Labour in Government has made to health in England.

Wandsworth NHS leads country on accessible GPs

Earlier this month the Government announced that 69% of GP practices in England and Wales now offer "out of hours" services to their patients. But in Wandsworth, that percentage is 75%: 36 of our 48 GPs provide extended opening hours, making it easier for you to see the Doctor after work or at the weekend.

This is great news and even more calls into question the Conservatives' extraordinary position of opposing this service along with polyclinics. Putney's Conservative MP is desperately trying to hide the fact that her opposition to improved GP services is completely at odds with the clearly expressed wishes of the public in the NHS survey. Meanwhile, with Labour NHS services keep getting better.

A sign of the importance local people place on continually improving services was seen on Thursday evening when the Putney Society held an update meeting on local plans for a West Wandsworth polyclinic (serving Putney & Roehampton), at which local GPs ands NHS managers briefed residents on the polyclinic plans and what they would mean locally.

Over 60 members of the public turned up at St Mary's Church to listen, and I took the chance of being there for most of the presentations before being having to leave to speak at another local meeting nearby.

Miss Greening is on the wrong side of this issue. People very strongly want the sort of change Labour is delivering, and while of course there is concern about changing the way health provision is delivered, better quality, quicker and more comprehensive general medical services will, I believe, trump those apprehensions.

Putney Society NHS meeting

The Putney Society is hosting a meeting open to all on local health service provision on Thursday 22 January from 7.30pm at St Mary's Church, Putney Bridge.

Our NHS has improved massively over the last decade or so: a brand new Queen Mary's Hospital, waiting times cut hugely, more doctors, dentists, nurses and midwives employed. More change is on the way with work underway on replacing Putney Hospital and changes to GP services which will lead to much more convenient surgery hours and one-stop healthcare. You can find out more about all the plans, question the experts and have your say on 22 January.

Speakers:

- Dr Sian Job, Chair of Wandsworth Local Medical Committee
- Dr Peter Ilves, Senior Partner at Danebury Surgery, Roehampton
- Nicola Theron, SW Health Partnerships [Putney Hospital site]

Measles, Mumps and Rubella

This week Wandsworth NHS is launching campaign across Wandsworth to encourage parents of babies and toddlers to take up the Measles, Mumps & Rubella (MMR) vaccination.

Parents are being urged to make sure their children have received the two doses of MMR vaccine. The number of measles cases this year has risen right across the country. To date there have been 31 confirmed cases of measles in Wandsworth this year, compared to just 11 cases in the whole of 2007.

The campaign includes advertising in parenting magazines Flapjack, Angels & Urchins and Parents News, news stories and features in local newspapers, parenting magazines and on online parenting websites such as Netmums. Packs of posters and flyers have also gone out to all GP practices and clinics across the borough as well as libraries, leisure centres, nurseries, schools and baby and toddler groups. The campaign also includes a roadshow of events at ‘baby rhyme times’ at local libraries led by the immunisation nurses.

If you want to find out more about the MMR or other childhood immunisations then there is a dedicated immunisation team locally. They have set up an immunisation hotline for Wandsworth on 020 8254 8393. For more information about any childhood jabs visit www.immunisation.nhs.uk

For more information on the campaign or to order more materials please call Maria Vidal on 020 8812 7609 or email maria.vidal@wpct.nhs.uk

Conservative cant over Queen Mary's

When it comes to Queen Mary's Hospital, Putney's Conservative MP has some nerve.

She's been in the local press this week attacking the hospital for its record-keeping, which the hospital itself denies is harming service.

Given that the last Conservative Government all but closed Queen Mary's, axing its Accident & Emergency Department in the process, I find it hard to take any expression of concern about the hospital from her at all seriously.

Justine Greening has voted the way her party told her to 96.4% of the time since she was elected in 2005 - sycophantic even by Tory standards. So it's safe to assume that she would have been a cheerleader for her party's closure of Queen Mary's Hospital back in 1997 and would have voted against the increased Labour investment in the NHS that funded the rebuilding of it had she been in parliament at the time.

So forgive me for being contemptuous of her pathetic criticisms of the hospital, on the basis that the hospital is disadvantaging patients.

The Tory closure of Queen Mary's A&E disadvantaged patients.

All-but closing the hospital down entirely disadvantaged patients.

In comparison, complaining about the storage of patient records at nearby Barnes Hospital while the system for storing them electronically at Queen Mary's is being set up is a pathetic, trifling criticism aimed - just as her turning up to the opening of the rebuilt hospital in 2005 was - to get herself a cheap headline.

The real newsworthy story, which would be a first for her, would be to apologise for the appalling damage her party did to Queen Mary's last time it was in power. If she can't quite manage that, the least she could do is stop criticising the hospital - especially on such spurious grounds.

Local dentists

Click on image if you need a larger version.

Patients' No.1 priority: better access to GPs

Earlier this Summer I launched a survey seeking your views on the NHS at 60 and received lots of really useful replies. Now. the Conservatives are doing the same. I'm all for that, except that the Tory survey isn't genuinely seeking views on improving the NHS but rather trying to steer people towards opposing more convenient GP opening hours, which the Conservatives are against.

The Conservatives (and, unfortunately, the British Medical Association), are guilty of a great deal of misinformation about extended GP opening hours and Labour's polyclinics plan, which was drawn up by one of the most experienced surgeons in the NHS, Dr Ara Darzi. So here's a short Q & A on Labour's plans for a better NHS in London.

Why is GP extended opening a priority for the Government?

The first national GP patient survey last year showed that there are around six and a half million patients who are unhappy with their GP practice's opening hours. The latest national GP patient survey showed even more patients unhappy with their practices opening times.

These patients would find it easier to access services if they could make appointments at the weekend, in the evening or early in the morning. The survey found this to be particularly true for young working men.

Our overriding objective is to deliver the best possible service to patients. People want health that is more personalised and convenient, so primary care services need to adapt to respond to this need.

Evening and weekend opening is unnecessary and expensive.

No it isn't. Extended opening hours are being paid for by re-using existing payments for GP practices, not from new investment. Labour is responding to what patients have asked for. We have heard what patients said and are doing something about it.

Some patients - the elderly and families - will miss out on daytime surgeries.

The BMA's claim that patients who want to see their GP during the day will miss out is simply wrong. This is about extending GPs' opening hours, not substituting evening or weekend opening for daytime appointments. More capacity, more accessibility, more responsive and convenient services.

How will this affect me?

Wandsworth NHS will agree with GP practices locally the precise arrangements, but we expect to see at least half of GP practices offer extended opening hours this year, with an average of three extra hours per practice. Each practice's opening hours will be based on its patients' views on whether it is more important for them to have more evening or weekend surgeries.

What if a GP practice refuses to extend its hours?

Labour has already announced investment of £250 million in over 150 new health centres across the country that will offer all patients (regardless of where they are registered) access to GP services 8am to 8pm, seven days a week. All patients will also continue to have access to out-of-hours GP services for urgent care.

The £250 million means more GPs, nurses and other healthcare professionals, more appointments, and longer and more convenient opening hours. This is about investing more in primary care, which is vital if we are to meet the public health challenges before us and improving the quality and accessibility of services for the people who pay for them

What is a GP Led Health Centre?

The basic guiding principle behind GP led health centres is to provide extra access to GP services. The Labour Government has set a small number of core criteria that we expect Wandsworth NHS to include in these services to ensure some uniformity across the country:

• easily accessible locations;
• open 8am-8pm, 7 days a week;
• provide access to bookable GP appointments and walk-in services; and
• open to any member of the public

These GP led health centres will consist of approximately 5 GPs as opposed to the 25 as has been claimed. Many local NHS Trusts are looking to provide other services in these health centres, such as diagnostics or pharmacy services.

What is a Polyclinic?

The NHS in London has developed its own proposals to address deep-rooted challenges of public health and primary care. This includes proposals for 'polyclinic' service models that bring together a range of primary care services, specialist services, urgent care services and social care in one place, or a cluster of convenient nearby surgeries.

What's Labour's record on the NHS?

We have put substantial additional investment into general practice. Funding for GP services has more than doubled since we were elected: from £3bn in 1997 to £7.86bn in 2007.

There has been an increase in the number of GPs from 28,046 in 1997 to 33,364 in 2007. In addition, more GPs are choosing to continue working after retirement age.

Since 1997, the average number of hours worked by GPs has reduced by 17% while the average GP has seen a significant increase in pay (22% between 2002/03 and 2005/06)

And we are responding to patients' number 1 demand to visit their GP at more convenient times

18 months to 18 weeks

Where has all the money that Labour has poured into the NHS gone?

Well, one of the things it has done is turn the average 18 month waiting list for treatment on the National Health Service that Labour inherited from the Conservatives into one of just 18 weeks. Just think about that difference:

18 months under the Tories
18 weeks with Labour

And remember that's the average. In Wandsworth's Primary Care Trust (PCT), newly released figures show that over half - 536 of 1,030 - needing treatment were seen within EIGHT weeks.

You can download an excel table that shows, department-by-department, the treatment times for Wandsworth here.

Wandsworth's Health Service in good health

The Healthcare Commission has just released its performance figures for all NHS Trusts in England and Wales. And Wandsworth's Primary Care Trust has, for the second year in a row, improved a category: it's now rated "good" at its use of resources. In 2006/7 it was in the lowest category possible; last year it was "fair"; now we're in the top half of the table for the first time.



However, there are still ways Wandsworth PCT can do better. While it's clearly getting to grips with its financial controls - wasting less, targeting resources better, investing in the right services; it is still in the bottom half of the table in terms of "quality of service" - the aspect of their service we experience and the more important measure.

In particular, the Trust still has not got to grips with infection control: preventing the spread of superbugs and other germs and diseases; it is not achieving targets for all A&E patients being seen within four hours; and its booking service failed the test too.

But the Trust scored a full-house in terms of "patient focus" - treating patients with dignity and respect, food quality, responding to complaints and the like; "governance" and "cost effectiveness".

Managers will argue that quality of service will follow once resources are properly targeted, and I hope they're right. With the amount of our money Labour has invested in the NHS, I want to see Wandsworth with "excellent" services - in both quality and use of resources.

Download the full Healthcare Commission report for Wandsworth PCT here.

St George's NHS Trust gets patients' votes

If you caught BBC London News tonight, you'll have seen a feature about London's worst performing hospitals. Rather than using some obscure performance indicators, this latest survey actually asked people "overall, how do you rate the standard of care you received".

For a hospital trust that tends to get slammed pretty regularly by the media, patients take a surprisingly different view about St George's. In this survey, the St George's NHS Trust came 7th best, out of 25.

St George's Hospital was part of the ward I represented on Wandsworth Council for eight years and I know how fondly it is regarded by local people in Tooting and beyond. The St George's NHS Trust actually includes more than just St George's itself - it also includes Bolingbroke Hospital in Battersea and the Wolfson Rehabilitation Centre in Wimbledon, but the vast majority of patients treated in this Trust use St George's.

One of the things that was clear in the BBC report was that the way the experts - including the hospitals themselves - and patients measure the standard of care provided are worryingly different. I'm pleased that patients are, generally, happy with the care they received at St George's though of course the message is that there is still a lot more that can be improved.

Tudor Lodge Clinic: responding to patient need

There was a really good report in the Evening Standard yesterday about how the Tudor Lodge Clinic in Victoria Drive is responding to their patients' needs by staying open beyond office hours.

The practice, which serves 6,000 patients in the West Hill area, opens between 8am and 6pm, as well as Saturday mornings. It is soon to extend weekday hours to 7.30pm. As the Clinic Manager Prath Thurairatnam commented: "We open later because it's about patients, not money".

This comment, for me, sums up why the Doctors' Union is pushing an argument they just can't win in opposing the government's plans to be more responsive to patients' needs.

GPs have received a huge pay increase and had the burden of required out-of-hours service lifted from them over the past few years - they deserve it and it was long overdue. But as someone in the area I was talking to the other day said: "illness doesn't keep office hours, and neither should doctors."

For any of us who leave for work before 8am and who don't get home til after 6pm, traditional opening hours simply aren't any use. It's no longer acceptable for doctors to essentially demand of us that we either take half a day of leave to get to see them, or just let our illness or ailment go untreated.

That's why I commend Prath and his team at Tudor Lodge for the excellent service they provide - and I suspect it's one reason why their patient satisfaction score is as high as 98%.

You can read the Evening Standard article here.

Putney excluded from Chlamydia screening?

I welcome the drive by Wandsworth Primary Care Trust - the major NHS provider in our area, to offer free Chlamydia screening to 15-24s across the borough. But while GPs and pharmacies will be offering the tests, there is not a lead testing centre in the Putney area - they are all in Tooting and Battersea.

I've written to the PCT asking why Putney isn't getting the same priority as Battersea, Balham and Tooting - after all, while Queen Mary's isn't a full general hospital it could certainly be used as a centre for this screening drive - especially as the area surrounding Queen Mary's has the highest proportion of young people in the constituency.

Chlamydia is a common, curable, sexually transmitted infection caused by bacteria that often has no visible symptoms. If left untreated the infection can lead to serious health complications in men and women, not least infertility. Anyone who has unprotected sex could have the infection and not even realise it, so it's worth taking advantage of this free service.

To find out how to get a free Chlamydia test please contact the Chlamydia Screening Helpline on 0845 155 0042.

More NHS cash - and going where it matters

Wandsworth is getting a significantly above inflation increase in its health budget next year; with the extra money being targeted at the public's priorities: cleaner hospitals and extending GP practice opening hours among them.

An extra 23 million is being pumped into Wandsworth - that's a 5% rise. As a result, by the end of the year no-one in Wandsworth should have to wait more than four months from referral to the start of treatment. If that figure doesn't sound especially radical to you, it's worth remembering what things were like just five years ago.

Then, 1,126 people were wating more than six months for an operation - today no-one waits that long. And 2,328 were waiting more than thirteen weeks - that had been reduced to just 434 by May of this year. Under the Conservatives, far more patients were waiting even longer.

Since 1997 when Labour was elected, London now has:

• More than 15,000 extra nurses
• 500 more dentists
• 500 more GPs
• Almost 3,000 more Hospital Consultants
• 1,000 more Midwives
• And more than 3,500 extra doctors in training

And locally Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton has been rebuilt and re-opened; Putney Hospital on Putney Common is on the verge of its very own rehabilitation and a new medical centre for the Southfields area opened a few years ago, to name just the three biggest NHS improvements locally.

But don't take my word for it - here's what local GP Dr Tom Coffey says: "I am impressed that the government is putting its money where its mouth is and providing us with the investment we need."

Click here to read more

Feet for purpose

One of the issues I was briefed on during my recent visit to Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton was the Pediatry service Wandsworth Primary Care Trust (PCT) offers to older and disabled residents.

Being able to cut our own toe nails is something most of us take for granted: it's such a straightforward, simple duty we take care of almost without thought. But just imagine what it must be like if you are physically no longer able to. So here in Wandsworth a chiropody and toe nail cutting service is provided - and importantly it's what's called "self-referring": anyone who needs the service just gets in touch themselves: they don't need to be referred by a GP.

Chiropody is a service that is affected by the postcode lottery: there are wide variations in the range and quality of services primary care trusts provide around the country. In Wandsworth, our PCT is committed to implementing the Pediatry proposals set out by Age Concern - you can read more about them here - to standardise services and make sure those who need them can get them within the same shorter waiting times that we're now achieving across huge areas of NHS provision.

Queen Mary's Hospital

Earlier this week I paid a visit to Queen Marys Hospital in Roehampton.

Going to a hospital isnt something that many people would normally choose to do but if you have had reason to visit QMH either as a patient or visitor - you cannot have failed to have been impressed by this fantastic state of the art local hospital. I was given a guided tour by Stuart Reeves, Associate Director for Adult Services at the hospital, and saw all aspects of the hospital.

I spent some time talking to an elderly in patient on Mary Seacole ward who was recovering from a fall at home. She was full of praise for the staff and the service she has received and it was with real pride that I explained to her how the hospital, which had been all-but closed by the last Conservative Government, had been rebuilt as a result of the record investment in the NHS under the Labour Government.

During my visit I spent some time meeting with Di Caulfeild-Stoker who is the Director of Provider Services. We talked about the health problems facing the area and the way in which she and her colleagues are trying to address them. We spent some considerable amount of time talking about how best we can tackle the obesity problem. I think school nurses have a vitally important part to play in this (pardon the pun) growing problem, but there is a real problem recruiting them due in part to the lack of affordable housing for key workers.

Also as part of my visit I met and spoke with a local GP who was gave me an insight into the primary care issues facing him and other GPs operating in Putney. I was invited to come back again soon to see in further detail the vital work undertaken by our NHS and I very much look forward to my next visit.

Roehampton students' blood donors campaign

Students at Roehampton University have been campaigning in recent weeks for the antiquated and discriminatory ban on gay men being blood donors to be scrapped - a campaign I support.

This is a crazy ban that shouldn't have survived the dawn of the millennium. The NHS blood banks are hardly overwhelmed with donors; and from time to time, especially during the Winter, there are often reports that stocks are perilously low.

The National Blood Service argues that even with screening there is a small risk that infection may get through. But it is unjust and silly to assume that all homosexual blood will be infected while all heterosexual blood is safe; especially given that HIV infection (to name but one) is now proportionally higher in the heterosexual than the gay community.

All I know is that if a relative or friend of mine needed a blood transfusion, the only thing I'd care about was that the blood was safe. Whether it was donated by a man or woman, black or white, gay or straight is utterly immaterial. How the National Blood Service can believe different in this day and age is extraordinary.