Meeting for Third Sector,13.00-15.00 Thursday 21st March 2019,CAMAD offices, Forge Road, Machynlleth
Present
Adrian
Osbourne PTHB (AO) Jayne Lawrence PTHB-Primary Care (JL) Sioned Jones Pritchard
PAVO (SJP) Jen Hawkins PAVO (JH) Sue Newham PAVO (SN) Linda Hayward CAMAD (LH)
Mandy Dean CREDU (MD) Mike Williams Town Councillor & Trustee for CAMAD
(MW)
The
main issues raised as concerns for third sector organisations and community
groups were, Community Transport, Prescription Services, Triage & Appointments, Supporting Carers.
Time
was given at the end of the meeting for additional anonymous feedback.
Community Transport
Community transport
has been put under a strain with increased journeys from the villages to Mach
due to the current reduced surgery hours. CAMAD is affected due to transport
requests with an increase in demand. Most families have 1-2 cars however
doesn’t always mean that the person who needs to attend the surgery has access
to a transport. The taxi card scheme helps but is not a solution, providing £50
worth of support, LH advised that a one way taxi journey from her village to
Mach costs £15. MW raised the question, “How
do we ensure that people who do not otherwise have access to transport, out in
the sticks, how can we help them to have access to services?” With funding to community transport
cut what additional steps can be taken to support people with transport?
 |
| CAMAD Volunteer Drivers Scheme |
Prescription
Services
Concerns were
raised about the meeting of prescription needs, meeting the demands of monthly
and weekly repeat prescription requirements. This places additional demands on
the already overstretched community transport schemes in place. There was a
concern from MD about increased distances to pick up prescriptions and the
extra stress that this placed on carers. Problems with community transport and
prescriptions are evident with notice required for Dial-A-Ride services and
infrequent public transport. Dial-A-Ride are also committed to providing transport
for people to go to HAFAL Crossroads, which means they are only available
between the hours of 11.00-2.00 with the rest of the time spent escorting
people to and from HAFAL. A general
question was raised about whether the PTHB could employ someone in a
prescription delivery service with the suggestion from SN that the PTHB invest
in a pharmacy van. AO responded that there were issues around safety
regulations and governance of prescription delivery services and that the PTHB
had identified transport and prescription services as issues and were looking
at what the best potential solution is to support these services.
Triage and Appointments
MD highlighted the
difficulties for carers flagged by the changes to the surgery and the
differences in the day to day running of the surgery. She pointed out the
importance of caring for the carers, the difficulties in being able to see a
specific GP and the issue raised with the current triage arrangements. It’s
important for some patients to be able to see a specific doctor which helps
with continuity of care and understanding past case histories. People are
having difficulties finding respite care, to travel to the surgery to see
someone who is not familiar with their case history, therefore the allocated
time with a doctor is taken up with explaining often complex case histories,
rather than current concerns, locums are often not keen to issue repeat
prescriptions so people are often simply just giving up on appointments, rather
than accessing the services they need. LH added that it’s difficult to get an
appointment at all at Cemmaes Road with no appointments available at all at
times.
JL explained that
recruiting GPs to rural areas is an issue nationally. Services at Cemmaes Rd
have been affected with the departure of Dr King, continuity of care with a
consolidation of services with young, enthusiastic and committed partners. The
fundamental issue is that there are not enough doctors to cover two sites and
that dispensing services cannot be provided if a GP is not on site.
Concerns were
raised about appointment times in Mach, if a patient is late to an appointment
in Mach their appointment is cancelled whereas in Cemmaes Rd there’s more
leeway. It’s not always easy for carers to get to appointments on time due to
circumstances beyond their control and very often making the appointments with
arrangements for respite care, transport etc can be difficult. JL replied that
this could be rectified with a simple change to the appointment software
settings. LH raised an additional concern about appointments and asked, “What’s the focused plan for when everyday
services transfer to the existing surgery, until the new hospital is revamped?
If everyone from the village has to make an appointment how will that affect
availability of appointments,”
JL responded that
triage is the way to reduce appointment times and added that it’s not uncommon
to wait up to eight weeks for an appointment with a named GP nationally. MD and
LH pointed out that there’s a problem with triage services in Mach it’s overly
complicated and people are simply giving up rather than accessing necessary
services. SJP suggested that it would be a good idea to educate people about
triage services about what, why, how and who and that this would help people to
understand the changes. AO added that a series of training events to improve
triage services is planned with a rolling training programme.
AO continued to
outline a primary care model, with a dedicated team of specialist support
services currently being implemented in Ystradgynlais, which is a model that
could also work with the Dyfi Valley services. This would be designed closely
in consultation with local partner organisations. MW highlighted the importance
of explaining to “older people why the nature
of the service has changed and why it will continue to change over the years to
come,” in his opinion this is
“absolutely vital,”
 |
| Adrian Osbourne explains the primary care model. |
Supporting Carers.
MD raised concerns
about the added strain on Credu, with carers having to travel further to access
services and the extra related issues around respite, transport, prescription
services and continuity of care. She highlighted the following issues, “How do we take a community based approach
to supporting carers. How do we make services more supportive for carers?”
She suggested a bigger picture, public health approach and pointed out that “carers provide a vital service in the
community, how do we support them as much as possible? The current changes will
have a disproportionate impact on the health of carers.”
Anonymous Contributions
Serious concerns
were raised about accessing prescriptions with people being unable to access
the medication that they need. People with repeat prescriptions are not getting
their medication. There’s a safety issue with people skipping meds, there’s a
major concern that something serious might happen and it was felt that this
issue had reached crisis point. People are aware that the doctors are under
pressure and at capacity but it was felt that this situation is not being
managed well.
Another issue
around reception services was raised with receptionists being perceived as rude
and unhelpful when people need advice and help.
It was made clear
that none of the above comments were intended to attack but are genuine concerns.
From the outside looking in, people are struggling.
No comments:
Post a Comment