By Carole Dennett
by Carole Dennett
The Isle of Wight NHS Trust should have consulted stakeholders, partners and the community before making important decisions about the future of Island health services. That’s according to Isle of Wight Council cabinet member, Councillor Karl Love, who is responsible for public health and adult social care.
This week in a shock announcement, the Isle of Wight NHS Trust said that the Island’s NHS health team and Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, will in future share a joint leadership team. A single Chief Executive will have “a mandate to create a single executive team and single clinical leadership approach across the two trusts”.
Despite the press release announcing the change claiming the trust had been working with partners to develop “a strategic plan for the future”, Cllr Love said that nobody told the IW Council about it. He said; “We didn’t know it was happening, nobody discussed it with us. The first we knew of it was after the press release had gone out. We even had a partnership meeting a couple of days before and it wasn’t raised there.”
“There are questions our community needs to ask about the impact this will have on our health services. I’m not happy with how services are being moved off the Island without proper consultation with Islanders. You have to carry the community with you – this deal by the NHS Trust has been thrust upon us with no warning or consultation.
Islanders could be forgiven for feeling this is not the first time decisions have been made involving Portsmouth and Island healthcare without their say so. In 2021 it was announced that £10 million of £48 million awarded by the government to the Island in 2019 was being passed to the Portsmouth NHS Trust to pay for two new wards at Queen Alexandra Hospital (pictured above). There was no consultation with Islanders on how the funding should be used.
The IW NHS Trust initially refused to answer questions about that decision, but after the IW Observer challenged their refusal to disclose information under the Freedom of Information Act they eventually released the information we had asked for. It makes interesting reading. Over 23 months from November 2020 to September 2022 an average of 21 Island patients a month were transferred to Portsmouth – with the same number moved to Southampton hospitals.
Since the two new wards with 72 beds were opened in Portsmouth in January 2022, the number of patients going to Portsmouth has fallen. Now just 18 patients a month go to Portsmouth – with 19 going to Southampton. Over nine months to September 2022, Islanders occupied less than 3 per cent of beds in the two new wards.
The low numbers of Islanders using the beds paid for by money allocated to the Isle of Wight are particularly troubling as St Mary’s Hospital has declared a number of critical incidents over recent months, with Islanders only accepted for treatment if they have life-threatening injuries or conditions.
Melloney Poole, the Chairman of both trusts said: “Working together and in collaboration with our partners is the only viable way to ensure safe, sustainable, and compassionate services for the Isle of Wight.
“We will continue to listen to the voices and needs of our communities and ensure they continue to be involved in the development of our services and the care they receive.”
“Creating a single leadership team and establishing shared clinical leadership will allow us to better plan and deliver services for a combined population of 800,000 people across Portsmouth, southeast Hampshire and on the Isle of Wight.”
The majority of trust board members, who make decisions about the future of Island healthcare live on the mainland, with one living 128 miles from Newport in Gloucestershire. Of the nineteen members, only nine have an Island address. Many Islanders feel that unless you live on the Island it is hard to understand the impact that crossing the Solent for treatment has, or the costs involved.
Cllr John Nicholson, chairman of the IW Council’s Policy and Scrutiny Committtee responsible for health said: “This is something we need to scrutinise. We will examine the documents obtained by the IW Observer carefully, and ask appropriate questions.”
The trust failed to respond to our questions about what public consultation had been undertaken on the decision to effectively merge the management of the two organisations.
