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Better Services Better Value is a review of local healthcare services across Epsom and surrounding areas and south west London.
About the review
The Better Services, Better Value review (BSBV) is looking at how health services in south west London and some parts of Surrey around Epsom are provided. This is because we face a range of challenges such as – financial pressures, more people living with long term conditions and not enough senior doctors available round the clock in some of our most vital services.
Initially the review only covered the south west london area, including the Hospitals at Croydon, Kingston, St George’s and St Helier. We have now widened the scope to include Epsom Hopsital, so the review covers five hospitals rather than four.
In order to ensure the best and safest hospital services for local people, local doctors, nurses and midwives are proposing that in south west London, Epsom and the surrounding areas there should be:
- Three A&E departments, with all hospitals having an urgent care centre, either located with A&E or a stand-alone urgent care centre
- Three maternity units led by obstetricians (senior maternity doctors) with midwifery led units alongside, which would be located in the same hospitals as the three A&Es
- Further work on the feasibility of a separate stand-alone, midwife-led maternity unit
- A network of inpatient children’s services built around beds at three acute hospitals, with St George’s as its hub, as well as improved children’s community services
- All five hospitals continue to see children with urgent care needs and as outpatients
- A planned care centre for all inpatient surgery for the region, on a separate site from emergency care, also providing day case surgery for the local population
- Outpatient and day surgery facilities in all five hospitals
- These proposals would support an expansion in services provided outside hospital, as near to where people live as possible, including in GP surgeries, community health settings and at home.
These are clinical recommendations from local doctors and nurses only. The detail of how they would work in practice, what it would mean in terms of patient travel times and the potential location of services and NHS staff is still to be worked through. This work will now be taken forward. When formal recommendations are agreed, a formal three month public consultation will take place later on in 2013.
The Case for Change Summary leaflet is now available. View the bsbv case for change summary here.