A successful Patients' Forum

Jill Kmight Chair of Scarborough, Whityby and Ryedale PPIF

Started ‘running’ with 300 patient long dentist queues and local people reported as extracting their own teeth

Successes Helped by Advantages of

• Public increasingly involved
• Keen members having a broad variety of backgrounds with a range of experience and skills
• Members prepared to travel and do more hours than Commission prepared them for
• A PCT committed to its PPI role
  

Sucessess:

• Lots of people attended meetings on Out of Hours service, Community Hospitals and Dentistry.
• Hope for same at next week’s meeting on health and transport
  

Early Successes

Forum was actively engaged in the PCT getting

• more NHS dentists
  
• an efficient Out of Hours service
  
• an active ‘Esk Valley’ public engagement, inviting a third of the PCT area to comment on their services
  
• podiatry to the remote Esk Valley area
  
• an exceptional treatment policy
  
• clarity on local cancer treatment
• lay visits to every local GP practices and a good and growing relationship with practices
  

New Successes

• Forum now actively engaged in
  
• Multi agency work in Whitby with many agencies ‘involved’ in health: GPs, health visitors, Sure Start, voluntary sector and Town, District & County Councils
  
• Multi agency work (health sector, councils and police) involved in domestic abuse
  
• Multi agency work with transport and access groups
  

What Future?

• Members currently inundated with letters and attending numerous meetings on the future of PPI
  
• Near future is a Forum covering a new PCT four times as big- over 100 miles wide
  
• THEN a network over the same vast area?

last updated 28/05/06