Audlem in medical limbo

At Tuesday night's Patient Participation Group meeting at the Audlem Medical Practice, the news that Western Cheshire Primary Care Trust (WCPCT) has taken back full responsibility and management of the Practice was met with dismay by the Group's members.

In recent years, the Audlem Practice has operated within the Central & Eastern Cheshire PCT, as the Audlem area naturally gravitates to medical facilities in Nantwich and at Leighton Hospital.

During those years, however, formal 'ownership' of the Audlem area has, largely for historical reasons, remained with WCPCT. Money was transferred from Western Cheshire to the Central & East Cheshire PCT to cover Audlem and district's medical facilities.

It was hoped that as part of the Local Government review, Audlem could be transferred formally into C&ECPCT but this was not ratified by either the Department of Health or Local Government department. Therefore, for what now appear to be bureaucratic and financial reasons, Western Cheshire PCT has decided it wants Audlem back fully.

East or West?This means the Audlem area is politically in the East of the county but medically in the West! The Patient Group expressed dismay at these moves as the change appeared to take no account of patients' needs. The move westward, in their view, will be detrimental to patient care, will raise governance issues, increase clinical risk and result in impaired access to services. The PPG is to seek a meeting with the Western Cheshire PCT, at Director level, and wants a clear explanation as to why this move has been forced through and detailed assurances that bureaucracy has not taken precedence over patients' best interests. Whilst this move to Western Cheshire should not impact on hospital services – the right to choose a hospital means patients and GPs can stipulate Leighton, or any other hospital, rather than Western Cheshire's main hospital, the Countess of Chester – an impact on PCT provided services is already being felt. There have been reports of both Leighton Hospital and the Spinal service not accepting Audlem patients for physiotherapy and there is concern about other PCT services, such as Podiatry and Cataract services, which may require longer and more difficult journeys than before the switch of PCTs. In addition to all of this there has still been no response to the practice from the Western Cheshire Practice Based Commisioning Consortium, who hold funds that are supposedly for the care of patients in Audlem but have as yet provided no accessable services for them. The meeting on Tuesday night declared the situation to be a real mess. It appears that the Medical Practice is caught in a bureaucratic no-man's land, its budgets in limbo and, as yet, little or no guidance from Western Cheshire's health managers on a range of issues. It's hoped that some of these issues will be tackled in the near future through Practice meetings with Western Cheshire's managers. More on this as details emerge.

A report of other issues discussed at the Patient Participation Group meeting will also be published shortly.

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