Cardiology, emergency surgery and trauma listening exercise
- Urgent cardiology services
- Emergency surgery and trauma assessment services.
Why are we changing services?
Over the past ten years, health and social care organisations have been working together to deliver high quality care for the people of Sandwell and West Birmingham. Through the Right Care Right Here partnership*, our vision is to improve quality and support people to live healthier lives.
At the heart of our work is the development of the new single site acute hospital, the Midland Met Hospital in Smethwick by 2018.
We have already begun working towards this and are starting to make improvements to our existing hospitals. We are making these improvements now, to:
- Improve clinical quality; we don’t want to wait three years if we can improve care now
- Manage a smooth transition; healthcare transformation is complex and we need to prepare some services for working on one site in advance
- Give faster access to treatment; we can give patients faster access to specialist advice and treatment.
We are working closely with our clinical experts, who have told us that by bringing services onto single sites, to create specialist centres, we will deliver better care for our patients.
This is why we are proposing to locate all urgent cardiology services at City Hospital and all emergency general surgery and trauma assessment at Sandwell Hospital (alongside the existing inpatient wards for these specialties), from spring/summer 2015. Outpatient cardiology services will continue to take place on all sites and increasingly in the community.
We believe these improvements will bring a number of benefits for patients, including:
- Faster access to treatment; as our specialists will no longer need to cover two sites and can better provide care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Also for cardiology services, by moving to City Hospital we can ensure the ambulance service has direct access to the cardiology unit for patients having a heart attack, bypassing the emergency department
- Deliver better quality care; by bringing services together our specialist teams will treat higher volumes of patients which helps maintain their skills and ensures better quality care is delivered
- Fewer cancelled appointments; with new state of the art cardiology laboratories based on one site (City Hospital), there will be increased reliability with the latest equipment and less disruption to patients who have planned surgery from emergency cases
- Investing in the latest technologies and treatments; if we don’t have to provide these across two sites we can more easily invest in the latest equipment
- Recruit and retain staff; we want our services to be attractive to help us recruit and keep the best staff. By having specialist services on one site, staff are assured they can more easily maintain their specialist skills.
We are confident these proposed developments will improve patient care. However, we recognise it is important that patients and their families and friends are aware of these proposed changes.
Find out more
Take a look at our Listening exercise booklet, to find out more about our proposed changes.
Get involved
You can get involved through one of the many events we are holding across Sandwell and West Birmingham:
- Wednesday 11 February at 6pm at the Postgraduate Centre (Surgical Skills Room), City Hospital, Dudley Road, B18 7QH
- Tuesday 17 February at 1pm at the Postgraduate Centre (Surgical Skills Room), City Hospital, Dudley Road, B18 7QH
- Monday 23 February at 1pm at West Bromwich Town Hall (Committee Room A), High Street, West Bromwich, B70 8DT
- Wednesday 25 February at 6pm at the Medical Education Centre (Beveridge Room), Sandwell Hospital, Lyndon, B71 4HJ
You can also take part in our online survey or complete the survey in the booklet and return it to:
Freepost address:
RTHG-KAKC-RTBZ,
Engagement,
Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group,
Kingston House,
438 High Street,
West Bromwich,
B70 9LD
The survey closes on Friday, 20 March 2015.
To request the information in alternative formats including other languages, braille, audio and easy read, please call us on 0121 612 1447.
We want to speak to as many local groups as possible, and will try and visit as many as we can. If you would like us to speak to your group please contact us on 0121 612 1447 or email swbccg.engagement@nhs.net
Who are the Right Care Right Here partners?
*The Right Care Right Here partners are:
- Sandwell and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group
- Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
- Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
- Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
- Birmingham City Council
- Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust
- Healthwatch Birmingham
- Healthwatch Sandwell