Herefordshire Healthwatch has called for more people to get involved in their discussions about healthcare, and to take time to complete their survey, so that they can get the broadest picture possible of how people feel about their community health services.

Anyone with any experience of using the Minor Injuries Unit, the GP surgeries, health care professionals who visit patients in their own home and mental health care provision.

Jade Brooks, Deputy Director of Operations Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, told the members of the public who attended the second meeting as part of this engagement process, that she is finding it hard to get people to give their views.

She said this is probably because we have not said that we are going to lose any of these services, but we need to know what people think about what there is now, in order to move plans forward.

Jade was speaking at the meeting organised at the Larruperz Centre in Ross on Tuesday, September 5th. There is another meeting planned in October, which will take place at a different time.

The purpose of the overhaul of local health services is to encourage people to take more responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.

Mike Hearne, a GP at Fownhope and Medical Director of Taurus Healthcare spoke about a new initiative, called Primary Care Home which was intended to get each section of the health service to work together more effectivley.

Dr Simon Lennane, who was one of the local healthcare professsionals attending the meeting, told the Ross Gazette that it had been a very helpful experience, especially the discussion aspect of the second half of the meeting. He said:“Primary Care Home is the most promising approach we’ve seen to building a stronger and more supportive primary care system. This will focus not just on GPs and nurses, but all the other factors that keep us well."

Ross-on-Wye Town Council has been contacted by the Clinical Commissioning Group in Herefordshire, which is responsible for buying healthcare for people across the county, as they are keen to ensure that councils are given the opportunity to engage in the discussion about the future of community health and GP practice services in the area.

The Council agreed, at their meeting on Monday, September 11th, to invite a representative from the CCG to attend a meeting. Results of all the public engagements will be used to plan to meet the future care needs of the community.

Anyone unable to attend a public meeting can find out more information and complete a patient survey at herefordshireccg.nhs.uk

Ian Stead, Chairman of Healthwatch Herefordshire said, “Healthwatch is the local consumer champion for health and social care. We are local people working to represent the views of members of the public to influence the delivery and design of local services."It is important that all members of the public from every community have an opportunity to participate in the CCG’s engagement. Therefore we were pleased to invite the CCG and Taurus to our bi-monthly public board meeting where we could facilitate the discussion and promote public opinions on local community services.”“We are concerned that the CCG have had difficulty getting the public to give their views and we will be advising them on ways to improve their public engagement, as well as supporting the public voice by promoting the engagement across the county”See the full story in this week’s edition of the Ross Gazette, or subscribe to our online edition here