County facing a cash crisis in health and care services

That is the shock claim in a report published earlier this week by the Lincolnshire Health and Care (LHAC) programme.

Officials from LHAC are calling for action now to address the challenges in the county’s health and care system.

They say the growing demand for health and care services, coupled with a system that focuses on hospital care, has led to a situation where services are struggling to deliver consistent, high quality care.

LHAC stress some of the problems with the current system cannot be fixed by a bigger budget.

They say more funding would not deal with the challenges in recruiting professionals into key health and care roles, including nurses, GPs, radiologists, paediatricians and other professionals.

Although staff work hard to provide good quality care, there are problems with cancelled operations, delays in getting appointments, poor communication and a lack of joined up care.

Lincolnshire, in common with the rest of the country, is required to submit a 
Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) to the government, setting out how it will address the financial 
challenges and improve the quality of care for patients.

Lincolnshire Health and Care is a partnership of 13 health and care organisations across the county working together to find ways of transforming services.

Proposals mentioned in the report include providing more care out of hospital with teams of health and care professionals that work together with the patient to deliver better care.

Some of the emerging ideas are likely to involve changing where some services are delivered, including potentially bringing together some specialist services onto one single site.

This may mean that patients will have to travel further to access certain services but will receive more consistent, good quality care as a result.

The recent heart centre at Lincoln County Hospital is an example of where this has already worked effectively in the county, with survival 
rates for heart attacks now among the best in the country.

Other ideas to deal with some of the challenges include using technology to share patient records and help to reduce the need for face to face appointments where they are not necessary.

Allan Kitt, Chief Officer for Lincolnshire South West CCG, and the LHAC programme said: “We all believe very strongly that the people of Lincolnshire deserve the 
best care we can give them.

“We appreciate that at some times change causes uncertainty, and in some cases anxiety, but if we are really to deliver on this ambition we must accept that some of the services now will have to change radically.

“We want to engage the people of Lincolnshire and professionals so that everyone has the opportunity to contribute to our plan.”

and share in our vision for health and care in the county.”

Dr Sunil Hindocha, Chief Clinical Officer at Lincolnshire West CCG, said: “What we know is if we carry

on doing things in the manner we are then Lincolnshire’s healthcare system is simply not sustainable.

It is clear we are not getting the best for our population under the current configuration. We appreciate

there is a level of uncertainty around this but it is essential members of the public understand why we

must change the way we deliver care. Everyone within Lincolnshire Health and Care has come

together and worked hard to put forward options ahead of public consultation. We look forward to

hearing people’s views.”

Dr Suneil Kapadia, Medical Director of United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust, has said, “I welcome

the publication of this document. It’s important that the public understands the reasons why services

need to change but to change them for the better. We have hard working, skilled and caring staff at

our hospitals, but the trouble is we don’t have enough staff to run all services at all hospitals. To

overcome this, we need to radically transform how we provide services. We want to provide local

services wherever possible and centralise services onto fewer sites when necessary. In the future this

may mean that those who need treatment will get the best care, but not necessarily at their nearest

hospital”.

Today’s report provides an update on the LHAC proposals and comes in advance of a full public

consultation expected before the end of the year.