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.