South West Bedfordshire MP Andrew Selous says changes to the running of the NHS in the county will have far reaching benefits for patients.
“This month Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group took over the running of the NHS in Bedfordshire.
The Chief Clinical Officer is long serving Dunstable GP Dr Paul Hassan. I am delighted that for the first time in my 12 years as an MP, I now see a doctor to discuss Bedfordshire NHS issues rather than an NHS manager, even though many have been excellent in the past.
“Last month I said in a speech in the House of Commons how pleased I was that in Bedfordshire, Dr Paul Hassan has told me that there will be unannounced GP visits to the wards of the Luton and Dunstable hospital and other hospitals to which Bedfordshire sends its patients. There will be private Trip Advisor-style patient reports coming back — not report forms handed by a sister to a patient and filled in while the sister is leaning over them, but done genuinely in privacy so that GPs can get a proper report of what is happening.
“There will also be real-time alert buttons on the keyboards of GPs and clinicians so that they can flag it up immediately if things are going wrong. That is the way to get an early indication of what is going wrong to make sure that we never have a repeat of what happened at Mid Staffordshire hospital in the NHS.
“The number of patients waiting more than a year for treatment has fallen from over 18,000 in May 2010 to just 842 patients which is very welcome. MRSA rates are down by half and 400,000 more operations per year are being performed than before the general election. Resources have also been redirected to the front line with 7,000 fewer managers and 7,000 more frontline clinical staff, including nearly 6,000 more doctors.
“A number of important reforms are being implemented to ensure compassionate care throughout the NHS in response to the Mid Staffs scandal. We are creating a Chief Inspector of Hospitals and the introduction of Ofsted-style ratings to embed a culture of compassionate care and zero harm. We are also increasing funding for hospices by £60 million and extending the family nurse partnership programme which will give more young and disadvantaged parents one to one support to bring up their babies.
“The government is also committed to increasing the proportion of people who get a diagnosis for their dementia from the unacceptably low 39 per cent at the time of the election. Prompt dementia diagnosis means drugs can be prescribed to slow down the progression of dementia.
“We are working to make the NHS paperless by 2018 by increasing the use of digital medical records through locally determined solutions. We also want to have the lowest mortality rates in Europe from cancer and heart disease, and achieving this would prevent 30,000 premature deaths per year by 2020.”