THE Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is developing its Annual Plan for 2009/10.

The Plan sets out how we will be developing our services over the next year, taking into account the local strategies of other health bodies, such as the primary care trusts and health authorities, as well as views we have had from the public about our existing services.

We are also keen to get the views of the local population on our priorities and the specific plans arising from these. The Annual Plan is currently out for public consultation and you can obtain your copy now.

A key part of this year’s Plan is a chapter on “Putting Patient First”. This phrase describes the Trust’s intention to put patients at the heart of how we develop existing and new services in the future.

In the past our focus has been on the traditional acute services offered by most general hospitals. We have successfully hit the targets we have been set and have been judged by external independent organisations as being very effective both in our clinical services and in our organisational capability. To continue this success we believe we need a greater input from our patients and members of the local population.

There are many areas of healthcare that have been given an increasing priority by the NHS, including patient education, relocating services into the community and the care of patients with long term conditions like diabetes and arthritis. We need to decide whether we should be developing a different balance of our traditional acute services against these new priorities.

In the traditional acute areas, some specific examples of services we continue to develop are our cardiac services. We intend to expand our cardiac angiography service into a full heart attack service and also our stroke services, which include a plan to develop a new purpose-built Stroke Unit on the Royal Bournemouth Hospital site.

In the newer preventative and chronic disease areas, we are developing a more coordinated approach to patient education, supporting services such as SmokeStop and developing initiatives such as the Respiratory Early Discharge Scheme (REDS). The latter allows patients to be discharged from hospital more quickly by improved support in the community.

The plan is available for consultation at www.rbch.nhs.uk/consultations as well as an opportunity online to make comments on the Plan.

Alternatively, hard copies of the plan are available by phoning 01202 704561 or emailing trudy.rayner@rbch.nhs.uk

Tony Spotswood, Chief Executive

About the consultation

It is important that there is consultation on the proposals contained in this Annual Plan so that we can carefully consider the feedback provided by the general public, our staff and local stakeholders. This feedback will help in finalising the 2009/2010 Annual Plan and informing our considerations. We have outlined a series of questions to which we would welcome responses. Your further comments would also be welcome.

How to have your say

All public consultation carried out by the Trust follows the principles of the Consultation Charter.

These can be found on our website at the address listed below.

The 2009/2010 Annual Plan consultation runs from 16th February to 20th March 2009.

This timescale is required so that we meet our statutory duty to complete the plan and submit to our regulator.

All responses during this period, from questionnaires, letters and other feedback will be included in our analysis.

Responses to the consultation should be either submitted via the Annual Plan consultation section on our website at www.rbch.nhs.uk/consultations or sent to:

Tony Spotswood, Chief Executive, The Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Castle Lane East, Bournemouth, BH7 7DW

email: comments@rbch.nhs.uk

All responses should be received by 20th March 2009.