THE NHS and Wiltshire Council must demonstrate how they will cope with Westbury’s rapidly growing population, a watchdog has said after investigating healthcare in the town.
Independent watchdog Healthwatch Wiltshire released a report last week confirming ‘widespread concern’ that more people moving into the town is putting strain on health services and infrastructure.
It said Westbury’s population grew by 24.1% between 2001 and 2011; more than double the Wiltshire average (9.6%).
The report said it was important that Wiltshire Council and NHS Wiltshire prove how they are planning to make sure services and infrastructure are good enough to cope with the growth.
A public meeting is being held this Thursday 8th September, at which Healthwatch Wiltshire will present its findings. The meeting is at The Laverton on Bratton Road and starts at 6pm.
The report comes at a time when hundreds of new houses are being built around the town, sparking concerns that residents will suffer as services are put under more pressure.
Healthwatch said people feel that they are ‘not getting their fair share of Wiltshire’s health and care allocation in the town, [and that] having been identified as an area of relative deprivation, they felt that services and funding should be prioritised.’
It said that the most well off people in the town could expect to have a ‘healthy life expectancy’ 14.3 years longer than their most deprived neighbours.
The average life expectancy of people in Westbury is about on par with the Wiltshire average, but the healthy life expectancy is roughly three years shorter.
The report said that problems were highlighted with transporting people to specialist appointments out of town, but that most people tended to think ‘only in terms of their GP’ when asked about health and care.
115 people responded to a Healthwatch survey about the White Horse Health Centre and 16 of them ‘gave positive feedback’. The other 99 gave mixed or negative feedback.
Healthwatch noted that people said they had to wait too long to see a doctor, that healthcare staff changed too often, and that the triage system was ‘inappropriate.’
However, a patient survey in March showed that three quarters of patients said they were pleased with their care and the reception staff.
Statistics showed that 35 formal complaints were made to the surgery between April 2015 and 2016 – less than one per week from a patient list of around 20,000. The report also showed that approximately 300 appointments are missed every month, despite reminders being texted to patients with mobile phones.
The report revealed that Wiltshire Council is providing £4.3million worth of care for Westbury people, and that there are 1,982 unpaid carers in the town.
The report contained a joint statement from Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group which said, “Together we are doing our best to make sure we can support people, and we are making some great strides to enable us to deal head on with some of the issues we currently face.
“We know that we face a tough road ahead but as well as outlining some of the challenges we face, this report discusses ways they can be overcome. We are confident that by continuing our positive collaboration we and our partners will carve the right path to make sure services are robust and resilient to meet the needs of the Wiltshire population not just now, but long into the future.”
To read the full report go to www.healthwatchwiltshire.co.uk and search for ‘Westbury report’.
