People in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire are being asked to help the NHS in a once-in-a generation opportunity to shape the way its health and care services are delivered to patients in the future.
NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has just launched a four-week engagement programme, which includes a survey and public events, to help shape the future of health facilities at Queen’s Medical Centre, City Hospital and Ropewalk House.
The facilities at these sites, run by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), are set to benefit from the Government’s New Hospital Programme, which is offering an opportunity to secure significant investment to redevelop them, as well as constructing some new buildings and carrying out major refurbishment work – these plans are known as Tomorrow’s NUH.
Amanda Sullivan, Accountable Officer at NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “We want to transform health and care services in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire so that people living in our area live longer, healthier and happier lives.
“Tomorrow’s NUH is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make some significant improvements to local hospital services, and we need the public’s help to shape these plans. This programme of work will support our excellent NHS staff to be able to deliver care in the best facilities, whilst making sure health services are located in the right places.
“This opportunity isn’t just about construction however – it will be instrumental in local social and economic regeneration, creating new jobs and stimulating ground-breaking medical research. It will also help to attract the best healthcare staff to the region.
“NUH is a large part of the health system in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, and we know that any changes made will have an impact across wider health and care services and how people access these. We are already seeing people accessing healthcare in different ways, not always at their local big hospital. This will continue.”
Amanda added: “In order to progress this further we need to hear from patients, carers and families who might be affected by the changes that our evidence suggests is right to make. I encourage everyone with an interest in patient care to visit the website, complete the short online survey and attend a virtual engagement session.”
In November and December 2020, the public were able to share their thoughts on the possible changes to the way services could be delivered, to improve the experiences of all who use the QMC and City Hospitals.
Since then, a lot of work has been undertaken to develop the plans further and to identify what can be done to make the best use of the funding available. This work has involved looking at where services could be located and planning how they would work together.
Rupert Egginton, acting Chief Executive at Nottingham University Hospitals, added: “We are really excited at the prospect of being able to transform our hospital sites and the way we deliver care through the Tomorrow’s NUH programme.
“We are still in the early stages of developing our plans, and it’s so important that we seek feedback both from our staff and from the local community who use our hospitals. I would very much encourage people to complete the survey or join one of the public meetings and share their views.”
How you can get involved:
A series of public engagement events have been organised by Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to update people on the latest thinking. You can find out more here.
A survey has also been launched to support this next phase, ensuring the public are able to feedback on the latest proposals. Complete the survey here.
No firm decisions on the way forward will be made until after a full public consultation has taken place in due course. This period of public engagement ends on 1st April 2022.
