Your chance to comment on proposals to shape the long-term future of the Vale of Leven Hospital. VISION FOR THE VALE OF LEVEN HOSPITAL The Vale of Leven Hospital plays an important role in providing health services to communities in West Dunbartonshire, Helensburgh and the Lochside. For the past ten years there has been much debate and uncertainty about the hospital’s future. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde have now completed a thorough review of services and are able to describe a Vision for the Hospital which will end the uncertainty faced by our staff, by our patients and local communities. New arrangements to sustain 70% to 80% of the 24 hour unplanned medical care currently delivered at the Vale The range of planned outpatient, daycase and diagnostic services provided will continue and will be expanded More than 18,000 appointments, operations and treatments which patients currently have to For adult mental health inpatient services we travel to Paisley or Glasgow for will, in future, be describe two future options on which we would provided at the Vale also like your feedback. It is vital that we hear The Community Maternity Unit will be sustained your views about all of these proposals. and promoted On page 11 of this newsletter you will find The Minor Injuries unit which treats 9,000 patients details of how you can make your views known. each year will be sustained Rehabilitation inpatient services will continue to This newsletter provides only a brief be provided at the Vale, although the number of summary of our Vision: you can obtain beds will reduce the full consultation paper by calling Inpatient mental health services for older people 0800 027 7246 or downloading it from our will be sustained on the site website http://www.nhsggc.org.uk/valeofleven A new, purpose-built health and social care centre OUR APPROACH Patients will be screened by ambulance crews as well as GPs NHS Greater Glasgow and frequent discussions Clyde took on responsibility during the past two years, for the Vale of Leven Hospital and by our staff who will in April 2006. strive to ensure that anything One of our key principles in we do is safe and provides developing the Vision for excellent care. the Vale has been to aim to We firmly believe that the provide high quality and safe Vision we have developed services as locally as possible. represents the best possible This is the challenge that has balance between providing been presented to us by local access to high quality the groups of independent services and a requirement experts that have considered to travel for more specialist the services offered at the or intensive care on the Vale, by community groups in occasions when it is required. A NEW MODEL FOR UNSCHEDULED CARE Since 2004, people who experience the Based on the detailed work most serious injuries through accidents or sudden we have undertaken since illness have been transported directly to the receiving the review team’s recommendations, we are Accident and Emergency (A&E) Service at the proposing that new service Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. There are arrangements be introduced: also other types of patients, whose condition is The Medical Assessment not as serious, but still need swift assessment and Unit will become a Consultant Supported GP led Acute Unit treatment before possible admission to hospital. There are currently 5,000 and will provide unplanned patients from the Vale of These patients receive what is called ‘unscheduled’ medical care to between 4,400 Leven catchment area each medical care. This is currently provided by the Vale and 5,300 patients every year – between 70% and 80% of the year who attend the of Leven Hospital’s Medical Assessment Unit. current level A&E service at the Royal Unscheduled medical care need to change the way The Unit will be operational Alexandra Hospital. These 24 hours a day and be staffed patients will continue to is provided to 6,300 patients in which unscheduled The Unit will be operational 24 hours a day and be staffed by by General Practitioners (GPs) receive care there. each year at the Vale and medical care is provided trained to provide appropriate General Practitioners (GPs) with support from consultants. is supported by access to at the Hospital. hospital care; they will receive Our proposals for anaesthetic cover. This is level of paramedic services, including The challenge is to provide advice and support from hospital unscheduled medical care would mean in place because a small consultants if it is required vehicles to enable the rapid transfer of unscheduled care in a way that between 1,000 and 1,900 of the 6,300 proportion of the patients which is clinically safe and Patients will be screened by patients around the clock. receiving this type of care ambulance crews, local GPs and who currently attend the Vale Medical allows as many patients as in the Vale Hospital using clinical Assessment Unit will also need to attend at the Vale may be at higher possible to be treated at Our Vision for the Hospital is that risk of becoming more protocols and a clinical scoring the A & E in Paisley. This will include, for there will be no change to its the Vale of Leven Hospital. system. If it is safe, and clinically example, people who have suffered a seriously ill and requiring Independent experts who appropriate, patients will be Minor Injuries Unit. This treats stroke, epileptics suffering convulsions, urgent treatment. reviewed services in August cared for in the Vale. If patients 9,000 patients each year who have people with serious gastro-intestinal There have been four reviews 2008 thought that a model are more seriously ill and are at greater risk, potentially requiring suffered conditions like wounds, of anaesthetic services at the of care could be developed bleeding and people who have overdosed higher dependency care, they on drugs. fractures, dislocations, sprains, Vale of Leven Hospital, the which would allow between will be taken to the A & E at the burns and eye injuries. most recent in the summer 36% and a maximum of Royal Alexandra Hospital. The We are committed to working with the of 2008. All concluded that 83% of unscheduled medical scoring system will be a further Scottish Ambulance Service to provide the development of the one which anaesthetic services are not patient care to be retained extra funding needed to ensure an increased sustainable 24 hours every at the Vale of Leven. is already in wide use in the local area. day. This means that we MaternitY EXPANDED serviCES As a result of public consultation earlier in 2008, we have agreed to maintain the Vale’s Community Maternity Unit. Over ‘Planned’ care is by far the appointments or courses provided at the Vale of the next three years, we intend to put most commonly used type of treatment) at the Leven Hospital by 18,350 in place and deliver a plan aimed at of service at the Vale of Vale covering outpatient patient episodes – an generating greater awareness of the Leven or any other hospital appointments, day increase of 20%. excellent work undertaken by the Vale’s – this means that the treatments and operations, This would mean that 18,350 midwifes and encourage women, where treatment is organised in short-stays, diagnostic tests, fewer journeys will need to possible, to give birth in their local advance following referral routine maternity check-ups be made from the Vale hospital. The unit supports 14,000 from a GP or as a follow-up and day services for area to Glasgow or Paisley patient episodes each year and we hope to previous hospital care. older people. to allow patients to to see more in the coming years. Each year, there are 90,000 We propose to increase the receive treatment. patient episodes (individual amount of planned care REHABilitation & serviCES We propose Bringing in the folloWing neW serviCES TO THE VALE: FOR OLDER PEOPLE A new £3.6 million dental Development of a The provision of a In future, we propose that RheumatologyService complex offering community, comprehensive day-to-day care will be general and secondary dental (treatment of problems with care allowing people who joints, soft tissues and Rehabilitation service provided by the medical attend 4,700 appointments at connective tissues) bringing on the Vale of Leven site workforce covering the the Glasgow Dental Hospital to a further 1,500 appointments is a key element in our rest of the Hospital. to the Vale be treated closer to home Vision for the Hospital. There are currently 59 Expanded specialist rehabilitation beds at the Expanded surgical services, Older people who have including increased numbers services including kidney Vale of Leven Hospital been first admitted to of patients receiving Ear, Nose dialysis and cancer care allowing but a number of these are 3,750 appointments to be either medicine, medicine and Throat (ENT), orthopaedic, often occupied by general general surgery and endoscopy provided at the Vale rather for the elderly, surgery or medical patients. (internal investigation using a than in Glasgow orthopaedics may require small camera) appointments, In the future we propose a further period of time operations and procedures at We also plan to increase the 37 rehabilitation beds and number of appointments at the in hospital to allow them the Vale. New services in retain one in four beds ophthalmology (eyes) and Vale for people undergoing to be fit for discharge. CT, Ultrasound, x-ray, for older people needing urology will also be developed. This care is called Together these developments mammography and fluoroscopy continuing care.