The Rye Medical Centre Patient Participation Group held its Annual General Meeting on November 30 at the surgery. The meeting was opened by the chair, Mrs Jacky Dudfield, who welcomed everyone. The minutes and other business were quickly agreed, and the various officer reports were tabled. Of particular interest were the success of the year’s two Healthy Living Events, with medication the topic for next one. The annual patient survey results will be published shortly.
Mrs Sally Compton, who had been a member of the Committee for 9 years, was presented with a bouquet in recognition of all her hard work, and the members of the PPG committee who had agreed to continue were confirmed, with a new member voted in. Small changes to the constitution were agreed.
The greater part of the meeting was taken up with a very interesting presentation about the future developments on this site, with Mr Barry Nealon, Chair of the Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital Trust outlining recent achievements and future plans.
Barry Nealon explained that, during the year, the hospital lobby and the outpatients’ clinic areas had been reorganised and fully refurbished. The 30 units of housing accommodation at the rear have also been updated, with a further 25 new units being built in a joint venture with Sanctuary Housing. These were now mostly sold or let.
Recent developments will also follow on from the acquisition of the former ambulance station, and an option to purchase an additional area of land, some 1 ½ acres, at the back of the Medical Centre
He referred to a Community Hospitals Research study conducted last year by Birmingham University. This looked at the patient experience and community value of Community Hospitals, of which this hospital was one of nine in the study. It found that those with close links to their localities were the most successful, but that all were under great pressure to meet rising costs, and some had been forced to close beds.
The East Sussex County Council, the Clinical Commissioning Group and East Sussex Healthcare Trust have been developing the strategy ‘Better Together’ to agree a comprehensive plan. This is due to be published imminently, in the context of an enormous increase in GP referrals and the pressure on the acute hospital beds. Policy is evolving towards the redeployment of clinical staff into the community, by establishing ‘out of hospital’ clinical teams, centred on ‘community hubs’. This clearly represents the way forward for our hospital and the trustees were actively working to realise three ambitions as part of this community hub concept. These were
1. To establish a minor injuries and illness unit, to improve the existing orthopaedic provision and to provide an X-ray facility to complement the MRI scanner
2. To build a new day care centre on the site of the ambulance station and establish an ‘out of hospital’ team centred on Rye, hopefully supported by a geriatrician.
3. To design and build a new care home on the recently-acquired land. This would help keep more elderly residents within or close to their own community
Summarising, the trustees’ aim is to have a first-class hospital at the centre of the community, providing all aspects of primary and intermediate care, residential and day care, and fitting the mission of the charity, to look after and provide for the health and wellbeing of the community.
PPG members at the meeting were able to raise queries and talk about these really exciting developments for Rye, with Mr Nealon. There was strong support for this progressive approach.
The PPG annual general meeting was brought to a close, and further updates will be available in Rye News. New volunteer members of the PPG Committee would be very welcome, and information is available on the website.
Photo: Gillian Roder