West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Herts Valleys CCG are taking another look at plans and funding requirements for redeveloping hospital services in west Hertfordshire. This follows feedback on the strategic outline case we submitted to our NHS regulators last year. We are seeking interested people from across west Hertfordshire to be involved in our evaluation of potential options.

 

Background

After reviewing the plans submitted by West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust last year, NHS Improvement acknowledged that there is a clear case for investment in local hospital facilities but they want us to do further work on our strategic outline case (SOC). Because of pressures on national budgets to fund these major developments, they want us to consider how we could make our proposals more affordable, whilst ensuring that our chosen solution will be viable long-term.

In view of this, over the next few months we will be taking a fresh look at our strategic outline case and we think it is vital for the views of patients and the general public to feed into this process.

We are using the need to do a refresh as an opportunity to comprehensively examine a range of options for the location and configuration of future hospital services. In taking this approach we want to be transparent in our thinking and make sure that our final case is a strong as it can be.

 

How we will involve patient and public representatives

We are seeking four patient and public representatives to be part of an evaluation panel that will examine the options from various aspects including patient care, accessibility and how they complement other parts of the health and care system locally. Patient and public representatives will be involved in analysing and scoring the options alongside other panel members. This will include health professionals and other senior people from the hospital trust and the clinical commissioning group as well as managers from other local NHS services and the county council.  This process will help us arrive at a recommended preferred option which will then be subject to further scrutiny and analysis.

If you are interested in being one of these representatives we would like to hear from you.

You would need to be available to attend two, 2-3 hour panel events that are likely to be afternoon sessions and will take place week beginning 14 January and week beginning 21 January. The first session will examine evidence that is being gathered around factors such as travel and population and the second will examine and score the options.

 

What we are looking for

You do not need to have any particular experience to put yourself forward to be a patient and public representative. However, we do want to involve people who:

• have a keen interest in future hospital provision in west Herts;

• are able to consider the  population we serve as a whole;

• are comfortable with examining and interpreting information and figures; and

• can be available to attend both panel sessions mentioned above.

 

How to put yourself forward

If you are interested in being a patient and public representative for the evaluation panels please send us an email explaining in no more than 250-300 words what insight or contribution you would bring to this process. You could also highlight anything else about yourself that you think makes you particularly suitable for this task.

Please also tell us where you live as this will help us to select people from across our area and let us know if there are any dates that you cannot make during the two weeks in January that the panel meetings will take place.

Please send us your expression of interest by 10am on Friday 30 November. Please send your information to communications.hvccg@nhs.net and title your email “Patient and public representative for hospital options evaluation: expression of interest”.  We really appreciate your interest and time and will be in contact during the first week of December to let you know if we are taking your submission further and to invite potential representatives to meet with us.

If you would like us to contact you again in relation to further engagement opportunities, please also indicate this on your application.

If you have any further questions email communications.hvccg@nhs.net or telephone 01442 898885 / 01442 284116