NHS chief wants to hear your fears
Survey will guide crucial decision
The director in charge of Station 15 consultations has urged the public to get involved before it’s too late.
In an exclusive interview with the Post, Professor Hazel Borland faced up to the concerns of the public.
And the NHS Ayrshire & Arran Nurse Director has urged the 16,500 people who have signed our petition to fill out the survey before the deadline on Sunday.
Professor Borland said: “I think those folk have demonstrated that Station 15 matters to them – and that’s good because it matters to me too.
“But I would encourage a significant number of those 16,500 people to complete the survey and really tell us specifically what it is you are worried about.
“At this moment in time no decision has been made. Let us know what you want to be included in our feedback so we can hear those views and include that in the analysis that we do.”
What is your role in the decision making?
My role as a director of the Board has been to chair the steering group. We have had a programme board that’s been established and I have been chairing that.
Our role, until March 8, is to go out and engage with the wider public to make sure I can take a paper back to board which will enable them to make a decision. At this moment in time no decision is made.
If your proposals go ahead, how will Station 15 change? People are concerned it will break up that fantastic group of staff.
I absolutely understand that worry because I know from the feedback that we get from patients and their families that they really value the care they get at Station 15. I am really proud of the care that they give too.
If the board make the decision at the end of March, we will develop the day ward in Station 15 and it will no longer have in- patient beds.
Anyone that needs an in- patient bed for their chemo will go to the tier 2 side, which we are proposing to be at Crosshouse Hospital.
But once again the decision has not been made yet and that is why we are going out to talk to people.
We’ve had 350/ 400 surveys back which is fantastic, we have our focus groups with members of the public and we have also had focus groups with staff.
Staff are always anxious about a change, but our message to them has been we WILL need each and every one of you to deliver this change because you are really important in making sure patients and their families still get the service you are giving to them.
People have questioned those figures that 75 per cent of chemotherapy patients are on tier 3, can you explain that?
Sevety- five per cent of chemotherapy that is currently delivered in Ayr Hospital will continue to be delivered in Ayr hospital.
So the small number of folk that need to be inpatients will get their care at Crosshouse and when they are stable they can get that treatment as an outpatient in the day ward at Ayr. It’s also important to say that patients whose nearest hospital is Crosshouse will be able to get their tier 3 day chemotherapy at Crosshouse. They won’t have to come to Ayr.
How will people in the south of the region who face a difficult journey to Crosshouse be affected?
It depends on what their treatment is. At the moment we are mapping out some patient pathways so we can be clear about what the difference will be in attending Ayr and Crosshouse in terms of the number of clinic visits, the number of appointments and the number of patients treatments.
We have mapped out a couple of those patients journeys. One in particular shows where there will be just one clinic appointment that is different – everything else will be done at Ayr.
At the moment if someone has a very complex cancer they have to go to the Beatson and no one is arguing with that.
But this model will allow us to be able to do more chemotherapy and over the next couple of years, as we get used to that, it might mean a person will only have to travel to Crosshouse and won’t need to go to the Beatson.
And some of the therapies at the moment which have to be delivered by the inpatient be treated in outreach at Ayr.
We are expecting a 40 per cent increase in demand for chemotherapy over the next five years and if the board make that decision then the amount of chemo delivered at Ayr will grow – it is not going to get less.
But will that fantastic staff force at Station 15 have to be broken up, with some moving to Crosshouse, should these proposals go ahead?
These is no have to. We have had focus groups with staff, we’ve heard all the concerns, heard their worries and had conversations about what matters to them.
What they have said absolutely mirrors what patients and families are saying and we are listening to that. Absolutely.
Once the board makes the decision we will move on to what we have to do now to implement it.
We’ll work with both teams of staff, at Crosshouse and Ayr, to look at what skills they need. We’ll ask, is there more training that you need? How are we going to make sure that we can keep you as a member of staff, in terms of those shift patterns?
Then we will work to make sure we’ve got the staff we need and we can grow and develop them in the right way to deliver iver that chemotherapy that is needed.
We will be putting investment into those nursing teams because they are absolutely going to be crucial, in the same way that we will be putting investment into the environment that the care is delivered in.
A lot of people have raised travel concerns. They are questioning the accessibility of Crosshouse by public transport and parking problems – how are you going to address that?
I totally get that so I am not surprised that is an issue. Ayr can be just as tricky sometimes. When we did a transport survey we recognised that a significant number of patients get a lift, so they get dropped off to get their chemotherapy.
That means the people giving them a lift don’t need to worry about getting parked.
We have also got a lot of patients who get dropped off by Ayrshire
Cancer
Support.
They are committed to growing and developing their number of drivers and they are looking to recruit more. The other thing that we will do is talk to patients, their families and Ayrshire Cancer Support to look at a number of specific parking spaces we could set aside to enable them to be there to pick them up when needed.
But this is a particularly vulnerable group of patients that we want to do right by, and once the decision is made we will look at what we can do to make that experience as least distressing as possible.
Surely though if someone was forced to travel for hours on a bus to Crosshouse that would be extremely distressing?
When we did our transport survey last year we found that only four per cent of patients who currently get chemotherapy at Ayr were looking to travel by public transport.
Pretty much everybody gets transport from Ambulance Service, use Ayrshire Cancer Support services or are brought to their appointments by a member of family or a friend.
That’s why we are working with Ayrshire Cancer Support in particular to see if we are able to increase that number of volunteer drivers which means that people are not having to do that on a bus.
A lot of people feel this is a cost- cutting exercise and the proposed downgrade is the first step in the eventual closure of Station 15. Is that the case?
There is no downgrade of Station 15. Station 15 staying in use is absolutely crucial to any plans going forward. We will still need all the staff.
Patients really value the care that Station 15 give and that is not going to change.
This is about building and
We’ve had 350/ 400 surveys back, which is fantastic
growing the service as we go forward. That’s why we need to look at a service change and why we need to look at how we are able to deliver the increase and demand for chemotherapy over the next couple of years. Over the next three to five years the number of chemotherapy treatments could increase by 40 per cent so we need to make sure we can meet that demand. That includes me. I may well need to be a user of that service. I live in South Ayrshire too.
Our petition to halt these proposals was signed by over 16,000 people in just a matter of weeks. Wouldn’t you surely agree this shows people don’t want any changes to be made at all?
I think that shows me a number of things. It shows me that people are really passionate about Station 15 which is fantastic because it is a really, really excellent ward that delivers a good quality of service – so that’s great. It shows me that people are passionate about being able to get chemotherapy in Ayr.
And it shows me that we need to get the message out to people that Station 15 is not closing. It is absolutely not closing, they will still get the nurse- led service that they have always got. If somebody needs an emergency admission to Ayr Hospital , they will still get that.
What we are looking for is for them to tell us what is it that worries you, what are your concerns. If you tell us that we can add that into the equality impact assessment and then feed that back. Because my reasonability when we take that to the board is for them to make a decision. I need to be able to say ‘ here is the absolute top five or 10 issues that people
are worried about and heres what we are going to do to help fix that.’
That will enable the board to make a decision. It could be that the board say they are not happy with what we are suggesting and they want us to go away and think again.
So I would encourage a significant number of those 16,000 people to complete the survey and really tell us specifically what it is you are worried about. We need to know the things you want us to hear.
It only took the Post five minutes to complete the survey.
To have your say before Sunday’s deadline go to www. smartsurvey. co. uk/ s/ ChemoReview2020/ or pick up a form at Station 15 or Ward 3A.
To mark the end of the consultation period , we also have a bumper 50 signature special on pages 8& 9.
We want you to get your family and friends involved before sending the signed coupons to Nile Court, High Street, Ayr KA7 1PX.
The NHS Ayrshire & Arran Nurse Director says after the consultation period ends on Sunday , she will present the feedback, along with our finalised petition, to the board on March 30.
Staff are always anxious about a change… but we will need each and every one of you to deliver this change