Over 50 local residents attended the latest NHS North West London Residents’ Forum last Wednesday to discuss our plans to develop a new planned care strategy.
The meeting was chaired by Penny Dash and the presentation on the planned care issue paper was led by James Biggin-Lamming, director of strategy at London North West University Healthcare Trust and Aarthi Ravinskar from the ICB strategy team. In a constructive, hour-long discussion, residents raised a wide range of issues, including:
- Communication while awaiting care
- digital exclusion
- patient initiated follow-ups being given a clear sense of expected waiting times
- Some recounted their own experiences and those of loved ones.
All feedback raised – along with responses received to the issues paper – will be taken into account by the planned care programme team developing the strategy. Planned care is also the main item being discussed with councillors from across our eight boroughs at tomorrow's North West London Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Ray Johannsen-Chapman, Insights Manager for NHS North West London, felt this was one of the best Resident’ Forums to date:
“There can be a tendency to assume that more agenda items equals a more productive meeting. But in practice, the opposite is often true. I’ve seen time and again that when people are given the space, they use it well. This is also dependent on the strength of the chair.
“For me, this reinforces that when we’re working with the public, it’s often better to focus on one or two key issues but no more. This gives people the time to properly engage rather than trying to cover too much.”