Agenda item

NHS Foundation Trust

Minutes:

Mike Proctor, Deputy Chief Executive, York NHS Foundation Trust came to encourage people to become members of the Trust.

 

The Foundation Trust has been in position for 18 months. It is free of government control to determine what service it offers and how to do it. After financial assessment we can begin to fit the service to the local area. Members have the opportunity for more influence on how it develops. The board of governors are elected from the membership. Currently the membership is 11,000. People can commit as much time as they want. They can take an active role or just receive the newsletter.

 

The Health Authority in York has top rating and York Hospital is an important part of this. What we want to do falls into 8 key areas.

  1. Real focus on patient safety.
  2. Perform well against benchmarks and continue to improve waiting times
  3. Make sure there’s enough capacity, beds etc.
  4. Give ‘customers’ free choice to any hospital in the country.
  5. Be a good employer and retain good staff.
  6. Develop and agree a strategic vision.
  7. Develop the site and improve some of the ward blocks.
  8. Be part of governments policy making – felt that NHS policy is determined within the M25.

 

As one of the biggest employers in York we want to be a key part and build relationships locally.

 

If you take part now you’ll have an input into how the trust is shaped. At some time we’ll all need to use the trust so we should have a say in how it develops.

 

Membership has grown. There’s no other hospital for 25 miles. Local people have a vested interest in making the hospital fantastic.

 

Q. Are there any plans to have a railway stop at the hospital?

A. We’d love that to happen. However we have a new car park starting – the contract has been signed and the construction will start within a year to double the spaces. One of the reasons we decide to keep to the current site is that if we’d decided to move it would take 15 years for a decision to be made and we couldn’t update anything on the current site until then.

 

We are actively discouraging staff from using cars and will extend parking for a while to provide spaces for visitors and out-patients.

 

Q. Is the NHS Foundation Trust the same as the Primary Care Trust (PCT) whose role is to commission health services and provide mental health services?

A. We’re separate but we are reliant on the PCT for the vast majority of our funds. The PCT has been in financial turmoil, two years ago it was given £10M less than the work was billed for. We are providing a cheaper service clinically and keeping patients out of hospital where we can.

 

Q. What’s happening at the Bootham Park site?

A. That is a mental health facility run by the PCT. We have a few offices on the site we rent from them. There is a small temporary car park there but here won’t be more, the field is rented to Bootham School.

 

A resident suggestion making more of the car park at the Nestle factory. One of them isn’t used maybe the NHS Foundation Trust could approach Nestle with a view to using the car park?

 

Q. When there’s problems with MRSA shouldn’t nurses and staff be discouraged from walking to work in their uniforms?

A. MRSA doesn’t pass via that route. Our policy states that clean uniforms must be covered by a coat if staff walk to work. Infections generally come form clinical practice which is why we’ve banned the doctor’s white coats. Since we thought that infections come about by organisational culture not just science our rates of infection have been favourable. Everyone in the hospital has done a tremendous job.

 

A resident said that when she’d been a nurse she’d not been allowed to leave the hospital in the uniform. In the 70’s you never saw nurses in uniform outside the hospital. Another resident pointed out that Community Nurses had to go out in uniform at times and that if it was the cause then we’d have to look into bar staff and staff at supermarkets too!

 

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