Kent County Council

Leaders from the NHS in Kent and Medway, along with Kent County Council and Medway Council, have published a compelling ‘case for change’ which sets out why [Health, Social Care and Public Health] Services need to change to meet the needs of local people.

The case for change shows that every day 1,000 people (about 1 in 3 people in hospital at any one time) in Kent and Medway are stuck in hospital beds when they could get the health and social care support they need out of hospital if the right services were available. Doctors and social care leaders say this, along with eight other key challenges, are the drivers for new plans being developed that will see more care provided outside of hospitals and NHS and social care services working in a joined-up way. They are calling for local people to get involved in helping shape these plans for the future of NHS and social care services in Kent and Medway.

Today’s case for change also shows that:

• We need to focus more on supporting people so they don’t get ill in the first place: Around 1,600 early deaths each year could have been avoided with the right early help and support for example to help people maintain a healthy weight, stop smoking and drink responsibly.
• GPs and their teams are understaffed, with vacancies and difficulties recruiting: If staffing in Kent and Medway was in line with the national average there would be 245 more GPs and 37 more practice nurses.
• Services and outcomes for people with long-term conditions are poor: As many as four in 10 emergency hospital admissions could be avoided if the right care was available outside hospital to help people manage conditions they live with every day and to prevent them getting worse.
• Some services for seriously ill people in Kent and Medway find it hard to run round-the-clock, and to meet expected standards of care:
• All stroke patients who are medically suitable should get clot-busting drugs within 60 minutes of arriving at hospital. None of the hospitals in our area currently achieve this for all patients.
• Planned care – such as going into hospital for a hip operation or having an x-ray – is not as efficient as it could be: There is variation across Kent and Medway in how often people are referred to specialists and variation in the tests and treatments people get once they have been referred.
• Cancer care does not always meet national standards: waiting times for diagnostic tests, to see a specialist and for treatment, are sometimes longer than national standards.
• People with mental ill health have poor outcomes: people with a serious mental illness die on average 15 to 20 years earlier than the general population
• Services could be run more productively: Around £190m of savings could be made if services were run as efficiently as top performing areas in England.

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