Working Together Steering Group

I attended a meeting of the West Cumbria "Working Together Steering Group" this evening at the Workington Oval.

In the words of the description on the group's page on the local NHS website,

This is the group supporting our work to try and make Option 1 for maternity and paediatrics a reality – that’s consultant–led care at the West Cumberland Hospital and a Short Stay Paediatric Assessment Unit at both hospitals with inpatient services in Carlisle and some overnight beds in Whitehaven for less poorly children. 

You can find details of the group and it's meetings on that website here.

They are open to all residents of West, North and East Cumbria.

Yes, that's right, I spent the evening before an election at a meeting rather than campaigning - because there's no point getting elected to things if you're not going to attend really important meetings relevant to the job you're trying to do. And this was a really important meeting for healthcare in West Cumbria.

The main agenda item, which essentially took up the whole meeting, was to work on the presentation that the group will be making to the Independent Review Group chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup CBE which is examining the sustainability of Option 1 - consultant-led maternity care at WCH.

The 12 month study period has now finished and Dr Kirkup's group is preparing their report on the maternity provision in North Cumbria and their recommendations could be very important.

The signs are looking positive but we cannot take anything for granted.

It was a very constructive meeting this evening: one of the things we were talking about was the extent to which "co-production" e.g. involving the wider community in health decisions is working: the tone and content of the meeting and the atmosphere of constructive engagement in which it took place demonstrated that we have come a long way in the past two years. 

For example it is now recognised to a much greater extent on both sides that the community and medical professionals both have a view about risk and that both views are valid. 

We still need to do more and I shall be thinking about how we can involve more people in discussions like the one we had this evening.