Swanage, Wareham and the surrounding villages are to get a new integrated neighbourhood team to deliver healthcare across Purbeck in Dorset.
Speaking at the Friends of Swanage Hospital AGM on Wednesday 25th September 2024, the joint chief executive of Dorset Healthcare and Dorset County Hospital Matthew Bryant announced that the work to set up the new Purbeck healthcare team would start in the next few weeks.
Joint chief executive of Dorset Healthcare and Dorset County Hospital Matthew Bryant was given a warm welcome at the Friends of Swanage Hospital AGM
More joined up patient experience
This is about bringing together a broad range of healthcare professionals with different skills to work as a team on a day-to-day basis to serve the needs of a defined ‘neighbourhood’ that makes sense to residents.
It won’t mean seeing different NHS staff than usual but it should mean the GPs, community nurses, physiotherapists, mental health teams and social services should all work closer together, along with Dorset Council and the voluntary sector like Lewis-Manning Hospice Care, to provide a more joined up experience for patients.
The integrated neighbourhood teams scheme is a government initiative which is being rolled out across England and Wales and has already been implemented in Portland in Dorset.
The idea is to tailor the healthcare provision to better meet the needs of individual communities but as it’s early days, what that will mean exactly for Purbeck is not yet known.
However Matthew Bryant was keen to emphasise that the idea was to work alongside Purbeck’s primary care providers like GPs and for it not to add to their workload.
Matthew Bryant, standing next to the chair of Friends of Swanage Hospital Deirdre Selwyn, announced that Purbeck would get a new integrated neighbourhood team to deliver healthcare
“It’s difficult and there’s a financial gap”
Matthew Bryant, who told the audience that he’d worked for the NHS for 26 years across the South West of England, including with community hospitals in Devon and Somerset, said he understood some of the concerns of residents in relation to healthcare provision. He said:
“My invitation to you is to work in partnership with us. Since being appointed 18 months ago I’ve got a real flavour of your concerns and know the strong support there is for the minor injuries unit at Swanage Hospital.
“There’s an amazing selection of services at the hospital but there’s been a pull back of some of them to the acute hospitals and I understand the level of concern.
“There’s also the changes at Poole and Bournemouth hospitals… undoubtedly Swanage is one of the most isolated communities in Dorset with the summer holiday traffic and the difficult weather conditions in the winter, which I don’t really need to tell you about! Accessing emergency care services is one of the challenges of isolated communities.
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution and we have to keep a strong focus on resources, money and workforce. There’s no point promising what we can’t deliver.
“It’s difficult and there’s a financial gap. There’s also our demography – and I don’t see this as a negative – we have 30 percent more over 65 year olds in our area than the average.
“We need to reshape our services to meet those needs and I thank the staff who do the best they can with what we have. We need to look after the NHS and shape things for the future.”
Sign of the times…and they’ve been reduced!
Questions about the minor injuries unit
In the following question and answer session Matthew Bryant was asked by local councillor and health campaigner Debby Monkhouse, why the minor injuries unit (MIU) attendance was 20 percent higher before the pandemic than it is now, and outpatient attendance was 30 percent higher in 2017 when we were promised more services closer to home by the Clinical Services Review?
There were also questions about the difficulty of booking Swanage hospital MIU via the 111 phone line and why people were often booked into Poole A and E when Swanage appointments were available?
Also about a restoration of the 8 am to 8 pm hours at the MIU, instead of the shorter current hours of 9 am to 6 pm.
Matthew Bryant said he was committed to providing the MIU at Swanage Hospital and that the people who work there do a really good job.
He said there were difficulties in providing longer hours due to the need to avoid anyone working alone later in the evening. However he said he was open to conversations and would look into the 111 issue.
Swanage Hospital was originally built in 1894 as a memorial to George and Elizabeth Burt, becoming an NHS hospital in 1948
Closure of rheumatoid clinic
The rheumatoid clinic at Swanage Hospital has recently closed, meaning that 80 people in Purbeck with arthritis, now have to travel to Poole Hospital for treatment.
A Swanage resident spoke movingly about her experience and through thinly veiled anger told how she was paying privately to get the same service she could previously get from an experienced nurse at the Swanage clinic. She expressed incredulity that so many people from Purbeck, many who can barely walk, are being told to get to Poole for treatment.
It was explained that rheumatoid services are provided by University Hospitals Dorset NHS Trust however Matthew Bryant said that although it was not something that was in his control, he would investigate the issue as he didn’t like to just say that it was not his responsibility.
The Stanley Purser ward with 15 in-patient beds overlooks the beautiful new hospital garden funded by the Friends
“Pleasure to visit Swanage Hospital”
After the meeting Matthew Bryant said:
“It’s really important to me to spend time visiting our local services. I have been to Swanage many times and I’m really pleased to be here today.
“I always look to build time into my working week to be out in the local community and it was a pleasure to visit Swanage Hospital this morning.”
Friends of Swanage Hospital treasurer Terry Buck delivers some surprising news
Lasting legacy
Earlier in the AGM, the Friends of Swanage Hospital treasurer Terry Buck presented the accounts for the year and was able to reveal some astonishing good news.
A man born in Swanage in 1923 called Ivan Lock, left school when he was 14 and trained in telecoms, later cycling three days a week from Swanage to Bournemouth for his studies.
As it was during World War Two, he would do a lookout shift in Bournemouth overnight before returning home by bike in time for a day’s work.
He worked hard and when he retired he put some money into the stock market. In 2015, his second wife Nancy was looked after by the staff at Swanage Hospital towards the end of her life and Ivan would regularly visit her. In 2022, Ivan also died in Swanage Hospital aged 99 years.
Terry Buck told the meeting that the Friends had received £3.5 million in income for 2024 and that the majority of that sum was a legacy left by Ivan in gratitude for all the kindness shown by the staff at Swanage Hospital to him and his wife. A truly remarkable story!
It goes to show that a warm welcome at Swanage Hospital’s front door pays dividends in more ways than one.
Chair of Friends of Swanage Hospital Deirdre Selwyn is encouraging more people to sign up to become a friend, to ensure that the group has a louder voice
Further information
- More about Friends of Swanage Hospital
- Become a Friend
- Dorset Healthcare website
