Wednesday September 6th

NHS, community hospital, SureStart, children's care









Today was an exciting day, because we got to visit two institutions.

Western Community Hospital

David Paynton, who is the Executive Director of Southampton City Primary Care Trust, talked to us about the NHS changing from being exclusively a provider into being more a commissioner, about several providers working under the NHS brand, about the increased fluidity of the NHS market and, the nevertheless significant need for regulation, and about structuring the market and measuring the quality around care pathways.

After David, we had Sheila Brooke, Head of Unscheduled Care, talk to us about NHS Walk in Centres. These nurse-led centres are based in the communities, open seven days a week from 7am to 10 pm, to allow easy access for all. They offer treatment for minor injuries and illnesses, for instance ear aches and emergency contraception, as well as promoting public health. In contrast to Austria, praticularly trained nurses are also allowed to prescribe medicine and make direct referrals into hospitals.

Finally, Fiona Baldwin and Judith May talked about community hospitals and we took a tour of the premises, visiting the stroke ward.

SureStart Children Centre

In the afternoon, we visited one of the SureStart Children Centres in Southampton. It is a council service offering activities and advice for children up to five and their parents. It aims to promote the health, safety and well-being of the children and parents by offering things such as soft play, promoting breast feeding, preventing the children being looked after by the local authorities, organised trips, support to parents in training and employment, dental services, midwives and dad groups.

During our visit, we first had a presentation by Gill Bennett, the manager of the centre, then took a tour of the newly built centre with its play rooms, kitchen, garden, clinical rooms and other rooms, watched a DVD about the dads' activities and heard another presentation about the Daddy Cool Project by Scott Hickman. The visit was thought-provoking and we found many of the practices quite well-developed and innovative. We will explore this area further in our project essay and presentation.