Healthier living aim to cut NHS shortfall

local clinical commissioning group has set out seven targets to achieve over the next five years, in responsetoan'unsustainable' increasing demand for healthcare.

The North East Hampshire and Farnham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was set up last April to organise the delivery of NHS services.

The CCG currently caters for around 220,000 people across 24 practices in the Aldershot, Farnham, Farnborough and Fleet areas.

It has a budget of £230 million, however, it faces significant challenges over the coming years.

Speaking at Rushmoor Borough Council's community policy and review panel meeting last Thursday, Gillian Trippner, interim partnership manager for the local CCG, said: "There is a lot of evidence to say that by 2032 a quarter of the population will be over 65.

“People are living longer and we want them to live healthier. Our most significant challenge over the next five years is managing increased demand with limited resources.

“Patients rightly have high expectations for the standard of care they receive and the demand for healthcare is rising at an unsustainable rate.

“If we carried on with the same amount of funding, between now and 2017 we would have a £20 million gap to do what we currently do.”

The CCG has set out a fiveyear strategy, made up of seven ambitions, to improve health outcomes and experience in the CCG’s area.

By 2019, the CCG aims to reduce the number of lives lost of people with treatable mental and physical health conditions by 243 over the next five years (a 7.2% reduction), improve the quality of life of people suffering with long term conditions such as heart disease, asthma or depression, reduce the amount of time people spend in avoidably hospital and increase the proportion of elderly people living independently at home.

The CCG has also planned to increase the proportion of people having a positive experience of hospital, primary and community services, and eliminate avoidable deaths in hospitals caused by problems in care.

Councillor Frank Rust, representing the North Town ward, said: “It’s a good plan, as it goes, but I want to see it working. Our wards are in a lot of deprivation and obesity in young people has to be addressed. Getting patients to take care of their own health is a big thing.”