Recently Suella met with Penny Emerit, Chief Executive of Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust (PHU), to discuss important developments that will benefit many residents across Hampshire. The discussion also provided Suella with an excellent opportunity to raise Fareham constituent’s concerns with the Chief Executive of PHU. In this productive meeting Suella was particularly satisfied to the see progress being made as a result of the actions taken by her Fareham Community Hospital (FCH) Taskforce.
In 2015 Suella set up the FCH Taskforce which works through encouraging greater collaboration between the NHS service providers, commissioners and decision makers who are responsible for local health services. In 2019 the taskforce published their Future Vision report which contains their recommendations on how FCH’s services, accessibility and engagement should be improved and expanded. One of the report’s recommendations emphasized the need for FCH to provide more services for long term conditions. In understanding of the inconveniences that some Fareham residents suffer when attending routine appointments, Suella was delighted to hear Penny Emerit confirm that FCH will be introducing a new chemotherapy unit that will be able to accommodate 10 patients at any one time. This unit is expected to be introduced on 7th March 2022. Following this successful addition to FCH, the taskforce is now participating in plans to secure a new renal unit at FCH. If successful, FCH will be able to develop a 25-station renal dialysis unit.
Last year Suella received multiple complaints from constituents about the chronic under usage of FCH’s facilities. It became apparent that PHU had been booking facilities without showing up, or simply booking the wrong facilities. Resultantly, footfall at FCH’s facilities peaked at just 40% over the past decade, amounting to an inexcusable waste of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money. Once aware of this, Suella urged PHU to fix this situation and convened the taskforce to establish a robust mitigation strategy.
In last Friday’s meeting Penny Emerit was able to reveal that measures prompted by the taskforce had been successful. When this issue was uncovered in September 2021 a total of 34 rooms were recorded as unused that month. Thanks to the action taken by Suella’s taskforce the number of rooms left unoccupied has decreased significantly. In December 2021 a total of 6 rooms were recorded as unused and in January 2022 this number fell to only 2 rooms. Suella was very pleased to see concrete progress being achieved in such a short space of time.
Having received a number of complaints about ambulance response times from Queen Alexandra Hospital (QAH), Suella seized the opportunity to raise this issue with Penny Emerit. Recently Suella was contacted by a constituent who shared the horrifying ordeal that their mother experienced. Having suffered a head injury, the resident’s mother was subsequently left waiting for over three and a half hours before an ambulance arrived. Suella was clear that this is not an acceptable situation and stressed the need to improve ambulance response times immediately. In agreement with this, Penny Emerit relayed her understanding of the issue and was pleased to reveal an exciting new development that will fix this.
PHU were recently allocated £58.282m as part of the Wave 4 STP capital allocations. This funding will enable the delivery of a fit for purpose, modern Emergency Department to improve both quality of healthcare and patient experience at QAH. Once the final approval has been secured, QAH will be able to drastically improve capacity for emergency services. The new department will also feature a paediatric centre and mental health unit, helping to alleviate the current pressures felt across Hampshire. Suella was pleased to learn that this development has been future proofed to ensure that the capacity of the building will be able to function way into the future thanks to the consideration of population changes being taken firmly into account. The new Emergency Department is expected to be up and running by December 2024.
In continuity with Suella’s strong commitment to improve local health services for Fareham, Suella will be hosting her ‘Health Summit’ on Friday 25th March from 6pm to 8pm at Gateway Church, The King's Centre, 171-173 West Street, Fareham, PO16 0EF. The Summit is free and will be an opportunity for residents to put their concerns about health and social care directly to senior staff from the various organisations responsible. The panel for the summit will be formed of representatives from Fareham Community Hospital, Clinical Commissioning Group, Sovereign Health Partnership, Hampshire County Council and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust. To attend this event residents must either visit Suella’s website at www.suellabraverman.co.uk or email [email protected].
Penny Emerit, Chief Executive of Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, said:
“We are delighted to be opening a new chemotherapy treatment area at Fareham Community Hospital, bringing cancer services closer to home for patients. Providing services such as this more locally will have such a positive impact on the care we deliver and the experience of our patients.”
Commenting Suella said:
“Getting more out of Fareham Community Hospital has been my priority for residents. Fareham residents deserve first-class healthcare and that is why I set up the Fareham Community Hospital Taskforce in 2015. It’s excellent to see tangible results being delivered thanks to the collaboration of so many health partners in our area. I’m delighted that Portsmouth Hospitals Trust is delivering a new Chemotherapy Unit at FCH. This will make such a big difference for so many local cancer patients, and I am also glad that we have been able to quickly resolve the underusage of rooms at Fareham Community Hospital too. Thank you PHU and the CCG for listening to my concerns and acting swiftly.”
“The new Emergency Department at QA Hospital is fantastic news. I’m sure that this will bring a lot of comfort to those of us who have had to visit in the past and to those of us who will need to visit in the future.”
