News

The future of Southern Hampshire Vascular services

NHS England, Healthwatch and local Clinical Commissioning Groups, have been working with all four hospital trusts in Southern Hampshire to informally engage with patients and the public throughout March – June 2016 about plans for vascular services.

An expert clinical review of services in Southern Hampshire was carried out in October 2015. The review concluded that change is needed to ensure services are compliant with the standards set by the Vascular Society to provide safe, high quality services for patients and to meet the requirement in the future to provide 7 day working across the NHS.

Watch our engagement video to find out about the plans. The video features Dr Liz Mearns, Medical Director at NHS England South (Wessex), Mr Mike Phillips, Consultant Vascular Surgeon at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and an Isle of Wight patient receiving vascular services at UHS.

A full report of the communications and engagement work carried out throughout March – June 2016 can be found here. In total, over 130 responses were received via face-to-face meetings or as responses to a questionnaire.

Of those who had experience of vascular services the overwhelming majority were happy with the support and care they had received to date.

When asked about the key priorities for the future vascular services participants thought that having the right level of expertise within the surgical team was the most important, followed closely by having access to a specialist team that operates a 24/7 rota. Being treated close to home was the least important.

In addition, when asked about travelling times patients who are already part of the Southampton network (Isle of Wight and Winchester) were prepared to travel further for treatment than patients from Gosport and Portsmouth.

Emerging themes from the engagement were:

  • The impact on travel and transport
  • Concerns about how the trusts in the network can work effectively together to ensure a joined up patient pathway, including discharge and appropriate appointment times for patients travelling further
  • Greater awareness of the AAA screening programme

If you would like more detailed information about the plans you can read the full business case or the leaflet used throughout informal engagement.

Media and other enquiries:

Carol Wood, Head of Communications, NHS England South (Wessex) on 0113 8252994 / carol.wood4@nhs.net