Community Update - 13 February 2024

Thursday 13 February 2025

Welcome

Welcome to our community update. This is NHS North West London's newsletter for local community and voluntary groups.

Please help us by sharing the relevant content in your community newsletters and email updates aimed at your members and residents. You may also use this wording in social media posts. Images and some campaign materials in different languages are available on our resources page.

Improving planned care and reducing NHS waiting times in north west London: your views

This spring, NHS North West London wants to talk to residents, health and care professionals, and community groups on how we can improve planned care for all. Planned care refers to non-emergency health care, such as hospital outpatient appointments or planned surgery. This piece of work does not cover mental health care.

We want to improve waiting times, fair access and peoples’ experience of planned care. To do this, we need to consider the changing needs of people in north west London, the increasing number of people who are seeking care, and how we tackle the unfair differences in waiting times and care experiences for people from different communities.

We want to capture your views so that we can help make improvements to planned care in north west London. You can get involved by:

Reading our issues paper, which sets out the challenges and our aims to improve planned care
Completing a short survey (which takes 5-10 minutes). This is available here
Send written comments to Freepost, Healthier North West London or email nhsnwl.communications.nwl@nhs.net by 15 March 2025
Join our virtual Residents’ Forum on 5 March 2025, 6 - 7.30pm. We will discuss planned care and NHS waiting times. Register here
Attend engagement events in our boroughs (details will be available soon)

If you need any support, please email nhsnwl.communications.nwl@nhs.net. We look forward to hearing from you.

Access to general practice: what we heard from residents

NHS North West London has now shared a summary of key findings from over 100,000 residents who took part in an engagement exercise on access to general practice, which included a survey and public events led by local practices.

At an online event and an in-person session at Brent Civic Centre, local people discussed the findings and next steps with our Chair Dr Penny Dash, CEO Rob Hurd and GP leaders.

Key findings include:

The friendliness and professionalism of staff within our practices across NW London was highlighted and valued
Patients report challenges in securing timely GP appointments, particularly in areas with higher demand
There are now more digital tools to support access to healthcare, but some patients report barriers to accessing or using these effectively
continuity of care is important to our patients, however some patients find it difficult to see the same GP as often as they would like
Patient trust and engagement with GP services is a crucial part of accessing high quality care, but can be impeded by language barriers, cultural factors, and past experiences with healthcare.

Find out more here.

Have your say on Compassionate Care for all in north west London

NHS North West London invites you to share your thoughts on the future of adult community specialist palliative care. With the ‘Compassionate Care for All’ consultation on adult community specialist palliative care closing on 24 February 2025, time is running out to ensure your voice is heard.

Main changes proposed:

46 new enhanced end-of-life care beds: These will double the existing bed capacity, providing much-needed compassionate and specialised care in comfortable, community-based settings for patients who cannot, or prefer not to, stay at home or in hospital. These beds will be staffed 24/7 by specially trained nurses and healthcare assistants, with regular access to multidisciplinary specialist palliative care teams
Maintaining 57 consultant-led hospice inpatient beds currently available
Specialist palliative care nursing teams available 12 hours a day (8am to 8pm), 7 days a week, across all boroughs
24/7 telephone support providing palliative care advice for all north west London residents
"Hospice at Home" services 24/7 in patients' own homes
Specialist palliative care outpatient clinics
Improved access to psychological and bereavement support for families
Expanded lymphoedema services for conditions related to both cancer and non-cancer causes.

How to participate:

Complete the consultation questionnaire online or via post
Join a borough community involvement session for in-person discussions.

For more details, visit www.nwlondonicb.nhs.uk/cspc

Your input is crucial in shaping the future of compassionate care in our community.