Imperial College Medical School students and senior civil servants studying at the National School of Government atSunningdale last week spent time reviewing services and developments at Ashford and St. Peter’s hospitals.

The twenty-two civil servants from a range of UK government departments looked at two issues for the hospitals Trust.   Two groups examined the development of an acute renal centre and a third group looked at the management of the current nurseries on both sites.     Both groups interviewed managers, clinicians and service users as part of their three day study.

The development of an acute renal service has been a long held aspiration of the Trust as part of its development of the St. Peter’s site as a centre of excellence for emergency and trauma services.    The study established that a renal service would sit comfortably with the other specialist emergency services available at St. Peter’s such as cardiac, vascular and urological specialities which are an additional feature of the health problems associated with many renal patients.

Speaking after being interviewed by the National School of Government students, Ashford and St. Peter’s Medical Director DrMike Baxter said: “We feel that Ashford and St. Peter’s is well placed and could easily host a major renal and cardiac centre.  The timing of the visit by these senior civil servants could not have been better.  We will be using their recommendations to shape our approach to the development of the renal centre.”

Surrey Primary Care Trust recently announced as part of their ‘Fit for the Future’ proposals that they would be seeking to bring renal services, which are currently provided for Surrey residents at St. Helier Hospital in Sutton, back into Surrey and will be consulting on the location during 2008.   Further information about ‘Fit for the Future’ and the renal service proposals can be found at www.surreyhealth.nhs.uk.

Speaking at a recent ‘Fit for the Future’ engagement event at Ashford Hospital, Dr Baxter said: “We believe that the geographical position of St. Peter’s Hospital would make it an ideal location for Surrey’s renal service.    We serve a significant proportion of Surrey’s population.  There are good road links from all parts of the county and our site development plans allow for significantly more car parking.   Our current clinical services would both support and enhance the provision of a renal service for Surrey.”

The other project looked at by the Civil Servants was the provision of nurseries on both the Ashford and St. Peter’s site.   Recommendations from that study included a review of fee structures and admission policies to ensure that the nurseries support the primary purpose of the NHS which is to ensure that the best possible healthcare is provided to the local population.   Petra Cunningham, Acting Director of Human Resources comments: "It is clear that the arrangements for our nurseries, which have remained unchanged for sometime, need to be reviewed to meet the current objectives and needs of the Trust in its duty to provide health services. The nurseries provide an important support service for our staff and that is where their focus should be enhanced.   We are grateful to the National School of Government for using us as part of their study programme and we hope that there will be further liaison between the Trust and the school to add to our own programme of education and association with a number of Universities.”

Ashford and St. Peter’s hospitals has strong links with Imperial College School of Medicine; St. George’s, University of London; and the European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Surrey.   Last week twenty-six students from Imperial College presented findings from seven projects looking at improving the NHS to a panel including Paul Bentley, Acting Chief Executive; Dr Peter Wilkinson, Consultant Cardiologist; and Jill Down, Head of Customer Affairs.  The premise for this work stems from the principle that everyone, regardless of grade or discipline, has a contribution to make to improving the NHS to provide better and safer healthcare for patients.   The areas covered were:

·          A Greener NHS

·          Patient Nutrition in Hospitals

·          Infection Control

·          Language Barriers – Translators in the NHS

·          Hospital Parking

·          The Ward Round of the Future

·          Angioplasty Bed Management

Speaking after the presentations, Acting Chief Executive at Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals, Paul Bentley said: “Involving doctors in the management of health services at an early stage in their careers is very important.  Here at Ashford and St. Peter’s our Clinical Directors are the key individuals responsible for leading and managing services and it is important that we train up the junior doctors of today to become the clinical directors of the future.   We saw a high standard of work and presentations from the Imperial College students and are proud of our long standing relationship with Imperial College and other higher education bodies.”

The judging panel awarded the prize (book tokens) for the best presentation to James Debate, Sonali Patel, André Kubler and Sophie Wrigley who looked at Hospital Parking.