Councillors call for more details on policies of care trust

10:49am Thursday 3rd January 2008

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HEALTH bosses are to deliver an update on the bitterly controversial referral system.

York councillors demanded more information on the policies used by North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT), to ensure they could scrutinise its work properly.

Two PCT officials will go before City of York Council's health scrutiny committee next Monday, to outline the system used.

The information will then influence the committee's forthcoming scrutiny review on alternative care options.

Coun Madeleine Kirk, vice-chair of the committee, said: "We said the information we were getting was not telling us enough, so we asked to see more."

But, she said, the information in the papers for Monday's meeting was disappointingly short of detail, and she would be asking council officers to ensure more was available on the day.

The PCT introduced its controversial prior approval panel at the beginning of last year.

The panel was compared to a judge and jury, and sparked fury from political leaders, doctors and thousands of readers of The Press.

We launched our Let Your Doctor Decide campaign, and won a major victory in the spring, when the PCT changed the way it commissioned treatments.

The panel remains in place for only a minority of treatments, and the PCT commissions treatments in line with the approved Clinical Pathways and Referral Guide, a new version of which is due to be published this month.

Meanwhile, committee chairwoman Coun Tina Funnell said she was looking to make the committee increasingly proactive in representing the public on health matters.

She said: "I want us to look forward in things like managing chronic diseases."

She added: "We have discussed it, and all agree that the key issue is how people can get care from the right place when they need it. It's the whole thing about joined up care and as services are moved into the community.

"Clearly there are some gaps, but we need to look at where there is good practice and why it's working, and why that cannot happen across the board.

"If people have got a disease for life, we need to know how they are being managed."

The health scrutiny committee will meet at Guildhall at 5pm on Monday. Dr Peter Brambleby, director of public health, and Dr David Geddes, medical director of the PCT, will address councillors.

Tell bosses what you think

THOUSANDS of people in York are to get the chance to tell health bosses exactly what they think of the NHS in their area.

As part of a national project aimed at gauging patients' views, North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) will be surveying the services it offers over the next few weeks.

The organisation will ask 2,000 people, selected at random, to complete a questionnaire asking them about their experiences of the NHS, with the treatment provided by GPs, health visitors, district nurses, NHS dental services and opticians all coming under scrutiny. All responses will be treated confidentially, and the PCT's chief executive Janet Soo-Chung said: "This survey will contribute greatly to our service modernisation initiatives, helping us to continue improving the services we offer.

"The information will build a picture of what it is like to a patient living in North Yorkshire, showing where we are doing well but also highlighting areas which the PCT needs to address.

"We are hoping for a high response rate as this is people's chance to tell us what they think about their local NHS, as well as offering us the chance to listen to and act on their comments."

The questionnaire forms part of a national survey of PCTs carried out by the Healthcare Commission, the independent healthcare watchdog in England.

Last year's survey saw York Hospital receive an above-average rating in most areas, ranging from the confidence patients had in its doctors to how many said they had to share hospital accommodation with the opposite sex, while 84 per cent of those polled said they had been treated with respect and dignity.