We are working to ensure that children on the Isle of Wight are supported to get the best start in life that will lead to good health and wellbeing. This will provide the foundation to ensure they are able to achieve the best opportunities and keep as healthy and well as possible throughout their lives.
We want to ensure that families, individuals and communities are thriving and resilient with access to good jobs, affordable housing, leisure activities, lifelong training, education and learning, health and care services are are able to enjoy the place in which they live.
We want to ensure that people on the Isle of Wight are able to live independently in their own homes with appropriate care support. We want to make sure older residents are supported to play an active role in their communities and supported to maintain and develop their social and community networks.
The Governing Body of NHS Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has today formally accepted the recommendations of the Local Care Board in relation to the future of acute hospital-based services for the Isle of Wight.
In doing so, the Governing Body endorsed the view of the Island’s Local Care Board that:
In light of this, the Governing Body accepted the recommended Option 4 with the modifications suggested by the Local Care Board. The agreement was that:
There was an acceptance that the issue of safety would be paramount when considering re-organising services and it agreed that no service changes will be made until clinicians are satisfied that the most robust processes are in place to support the safety of patients being transferred to, or retrieved from, the mainland.CCG Governing Board members also recognised that travelling off the Island can, at times, be difficult, stressful, and costly for both patients and those who care for them. Keeping this burden to a minimum will be a central concern in the next phase of work when more detailed discussions about services begin to take place.Today’s recommendation comes after a long period of consideration over the future of hospital services on the Island. This work has been clinically-led, and has benefited from patients, stakeholders and community involvement.Throughout this process the intention has been to seek solutions to the mounting pressures faced by the Island’s health and care systems – an ageing population, the growing need for complex and specialist care, difficulties recruiting key staff groups, the challenge of keeping staff skill levels high when performing relatively low numbers of some procedures, and the financial pressures of maintaining such a wide range of hospital services for a relatively small local population.Dr Michele Legg, the chair of the CCG Governing Body, said: “This is about trying to get the balance right – we want to ensure that nobody has to make difficult journeys for hospital care unless they absolutely have to, but at the same time we must also ensure that Island residents can get access to the best, safest care when they need it.“To try to strike that balance, we want to see more routine care provided to a high quality on the Island so that we limit unnecessary travel. But we also accept that, for a small number of patients with certain complex conditions, they will receive better care and results from their treatment from larger, more specialist teams than those we have based on the Island. These are teams that are performing multiple procedures every day rather than several times a year and who have access to specialist equipment and staff.“Fundamentally, we believe the right approach is to keep hospital care convenient whenever possible but that sometimes getting access to the best possible specialist care must be the overriding priority.”Today's decision marks an important milestone but is by no means the final step in this process. Over the coming months, these proposals will need to be further developed and refined with local professionals, partner NHS organisations, stakeholders and residents.The specific plans will also be considered by NHS England, and will then be subject to a formal process of public consultation, likely to be towards the end of the year.The papers for the meeting can be read in full here.
