Progress being made to improve local health services across Sussex

Health and care services across the whole country have been under increasing strain this winter due to the high numbers of people needing care and treatment and this has meant not everyone has always received the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

A lot of work is taking place to give people quicker access to services, reduce waiting times and to ease the pressure on staff. This includes:

Increasing access to GP services by:

More appointments being made available at different times of the day.

Additional experts being available to cater for different needs.

Reducing the time people send on waiting to speak to someone when phoning for an appointment.

Improving response times to 999 calls and reducing A&E waiting times by:

Supporting more people in their own homes to avoid them needing to go into hospital as an emergency, including extending community urgent response services.

Identifying those most at risk of hospital admission in our communities and ensured support is available to them.

Supporting ambulance crews to be able to be released quickly from the scene of lower acuity calls when the patient does not need to go to hospital.

Reducing diagnostic and planned care waiting lists by:

Creating extra capacity at NHS trusts to be able to offer more appointments and more surgery sessions.

NHS organisations working together so patients can be offered an appointment at an alternative hospital if it means they can be seen quicker.

Establishing Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead as a cancer and elective hub for Sussex this winter.

Speeding up discharge from hospitals by:

Using the allocated £16.4m of the national Adult Social Care Discharge Fund to ensure people can be discharged from hospital as quickly as possible.

Recruiting and redeploying more staff to work in ‘discharge hubs’ to focus on improving safe and more timely discharge from hospital.

Increasing the volume of packages of care and placements to make sure there is care available outside of hospital.

Adam Doyle, Chief Executive Officer of NHS Sussex, said: “We know too many people have had to wait too long for services this winter and we are making immediate and long-term improvements to address this.

"A lot of work is already taking place across health and care organisations and progress is being made in many areas, including more appointments at GP practices, the use of the new Community Diagnostic Centres closer to people’s homes, our Urgent Community Response teams working to stop people ending up going to A&E, and the Virtual Wards that allow people to cared for at home and not having to go to hospital.

“We need to be realistic and recognise that some improvements will take longer than others to take effect but the work taking place is making a difference and all organisations and staff across the system are working hard to give people the care they need as quickly as possible.”