East Leicestershire and Rutland CCG Members Magazine Autumn 2014

Members’ Magazine | Autumn 2014www.elrmembership.org

Inside: Arriva patient transport • Sober Stoptober? • Babies’ health • Good news from the heart • Would you recommend your GP?

Active Rutland Awards

2014

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2 Autumn 2014, Issue 9: be healthy be heard

Welcome to your autumn edition of be healthy, be heard for East Leicestershire and Rutland.

At last we have staged our first annual general meeting, which gave us a real opportunity to show people what we do and our plans for the future.

It was heartening that more than 100 people attended to hear what we have achieved since we became an official NHS organisation in April last year.

It also gave me an opportunity to discuss the challenges still to be met in East Leicestershire and Rutland. For instance, we’d like to see faster progress in bringing together health and social care services, so they work as one, and we would like to see more barriers broken down to make healthcare work more efficiently and give patients a better experience of their care services.

There was also much to celebrate. We undertook a far-ranging public consultation on ways to improve non-emergency urgent care across East Leicestershire and Rutland, and the revised service will go live next year. Overall there will be a broader service operating from GP surgeries and urgent care centres, offering additional hours.

Looking ahead, I outlined the major Better Care Together programme to review and make best use of NHS buildings and resources across the whole of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. On page 5 you can read more about this widescale work and its importance, especially in

looking after the steadily rising number of elderly patients with long-term health conditions.

We also feature the Active Rutland Awards, celebrating the outstanding athletes, coaches, volunteers, sports clubs and projects in the county (see page 12), we explore the way Arriva are tackling their patient transport problems, and on page 7 we ask “Would you recommend your GP?”

And following the interest shown at our AGM in our role in the NHS, we start a series of insights into work on page 8. I hope you find it informative and helpful.

Dave Briggs

Managing Director, East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group

Dear members,

Contactus:If you have a practical tip, health suggestion or an interesting story, please send it for inclusion in the next issue using the contact details below. We are also looking for cover stars – send us your picture and health story if you would like to appear on our coverEmail: [email protected]

Post: Please send all correspondence to:

East Leicestershire & Rutland CCG Freepost ADMAIL 4228 Market Harborough LE16 7ZZ

Telephone: 0300 555 5345

Please note that the membership helpline is open between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Published by: GEM CSU, St John’s House, 30 East Street, Leicester, LE1 6NB



Autumn 2014, Issue 9: be healthy be heard 3

Contactus:You may be aware of recent concerns regarding the performance of Arriva Transport Solutions, the company which holds the contract for non-emergency patient transport to and from appointments for clinically eligible patients.

Arriva patient transport

– getting there

Our CCG manages the contract for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. We take performance issues very seriously and the safety and wellbeing of patients is paramount.

Concerns have been raised regarding incidents where the service has fallen short of the standards patients rightly expect and require. So we felt it important to explain the facts, and what we are doing to resolve the issues.

From April 2013, when the CCGs took over the contract, we have been closely managing Arriva and working with them to help them focus on priority areas of concern. We have also issued financial penalties where appropriate.

As a result Arriva has undertaken a major managerial and operational restructure for our area, bringing in greater management competency and capacity to address the issues and work on meeting targets. They have presented us with a forecast of the stages in improvements on a month by month basis. We have been assured by Arriva’s UK Managing Director they will be

compliant with the main contract targets by the end of October 2014.

A critical factor in the delays is the continuing increase, well above the level anticipated in the original 2012 contract, in patients with more complex mobility issues who require higher levels of support and higher specification transport. So the CCG contracts team have been redefining the contract to better recognise there are fewer patients able to stand and walk, and more who need complex wheelchair and stretcher journeys.

Improvements include changes to rotas to ensure ambulance cover across the day reflects patients’ needs, plus an increase in frontline supervisors and ambulance care assistants.

There will be more volunteer drivers, while changes are underway to identify delays much earlier and enable additional vehicles to be used more quickly. Arriva now has dedicated staff working with hospital discharge teams to ensure transport services align with the discharge process at all times.

These changes should have a

major impact on Arriva being able to provide a better service to patients.

Arriva completed over 250,000 journeys in the last contract year and the majority of patients have a good experience of Arriva.

At an Arriva public meeting about what they were doing to improve performance, Robin Wintle, associate director for contract and provider performance at our CCG, spoke about our commitment to helping Arriva improve.

He said: “It has been suggested we should terminate the contract but we don’t believe it is the right course of action. We have already seen improvements and Arriva’s management team have presented us with a credible plan for compliance with key performance indicators by the end of October. We believe the best way to make sure patients get a better service is to work with Arriva. Any other provider would be likely to suffer similar issues. Ultimately, we want patients to receive the best possible service they can and we continue to manage the contract with that at the forefront of our minds.”.



Smokers and drinkers are being urged to give up their habits by two separate health campaigns.

Stoptober encourages smokers to try to give up tobacco to become smoke free. Those taking part will received an e-mail support pack and an optional support pack through the post.

If participants download the phone application, they will also receive frequent updates and motivational messages.

More than 200,00 people had signed the UK smokefree pledge by the first day of the month.

Louise Ross, stop smoking service manager for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, said: “With many people across the county set to take part in Stoptober, our team is looking forward to providing people with the best tools to succeed in going smoke-free for the month and, hopefully, beyond.”

Her team offers all the traditional licensed products, such as patches, mouth-sprays, inhalators, Champix and many more, and advisors are skilled in helping people choose the right product for them. They are also e-cig-friendly, and although they can’t supply e-cigs, they can give the behavioural support that makes a big difference to success rates.

For more information on this local service see their website www.ballstostop.co.uk.

‘Go Sober’ is a charity challenge aimed at raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Macmillan is asking people to have a dry month and abstain from drinking alcohol in exchange for sponsorship from families and friends.

More than 80,000 people have signed up for Go Sober by the start of the month, with around £640,000 raised so far.

Taking a month off the booze can have many potential benefits.

By having lots of gloriously hangover-free days you’ll not only be raising lots of money to help people with cancer, you’ll also be doing oodles of good for your own health. Together with a few small improvements to your diet and exercise routine you could expect to experience a range of the following:

• increased energy levels, higher productivity

• clearer head

• no more hangovers

• sleeping better / snoring less

• weight loss

• clearer skin

• healthier bank balance / Save money

• sense of achievement

• fresh approach to alcohol consumption

• generally feel healthier

• doing something positive for a good cause.

OCTOBER MEANS

Stoptober & Go Sobercharity challenge

More than 80,000 people have signed up



Our biggest review of health and social careDoctors and other professionals from the entire health and social care system have led the most wide-ranging review ever of local services. The result is a stronger emphasis on providing the right support and care people need, in the most appropriate place.

The plan has been produced under the banner of Better Care Together, a partnership of NHS organisations and local authorities across the area.

The Case for Change

Better Care Together is driven by a shared recognition that local services need to change to make best use of resources and meet the challenges of the future, including a growing population with many people living longer and needing long-term health and social care. This means doing more with less.

The Better Care Together plan sets out ideas for how care could be delivered, including:

• more resources in the community to support independent living

• care services which are more connected and which create a better experience for the people using them

• if acute services are relocated, a re-shaped General Hospital with community beds, a Diabetes Centre of Excellence, rehabilitation, psychological therapies and outpatient clinics

• smaller hospitals and fewer acute beds, as a result of shifting workload and resource to the community

• a redevelopment of the A&E area at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a new cutting-edge cardiovascular and renal service at Glenfield

• more efficient use of the large estate of NHS buildings, which may involve closing some

• a review of maternity services to ensure they are sustainable.

The overall aim is for organisations to work together to provide more support for patients at home - so reducing the risk of serious illness requiring admission to hospital. This will not only keep people well, but also improve their quality of life.After development of the plan, Better Care Together is now entering its second phase – re-designing key areas of healthcare: • urgent care

• care for people with long-term conditions

• care for frail older people

• mental healthcare

• planned care

• maternity and newborn babies

• learning disabilities

• children’s services

This work is leading to the development of more detailed options for change which is due to be published in the next few weeks.

Jennifer Fenelon, who chairs the Better Care Together Patient and Public Group, said: “Our challenge is to ensure that the views of patients and public are at the very heart of reshaping services.”

Patients, public, community and voluntary organisations have already been actively involved but more people are being asked to join the debate. This is an on-going review and there are various ways to contribute:

Healthwatch Contact your local Healthwatch – an official body set up to gather public opinion on health and social care services: Leicester/Leicestershire 0116 257 4999, and Rutland 01572 720381

Email Express an opinion, ask a question or volunteer to get involved in the design of services: bct@eastleicestershireand rutlandccg.nhs.uk

Online Learn more at www.bettercareleicester.nhs.uk. Here you will find the full Better Care Together plan and a range of supporting information.

People across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are being invited to join the debate about the future shape of health and social care.



This is about widening patients’ rights to choose how they receive their care. Personal health budgets give people more independence over how their healthcare money is spent, which could be on carers to provide intensive help at home, equipment to improve quality of life or approved therapies. Patients will be able to choose new and creative ways that are helpful to them as individuals.

Personal health budgets are not new money – they are a way of using NHS money differently, where people want to and where it is clinically safe. This is a whole new approach and puts the patient firmly in control of managing their own health care.

The first group of eligible patients are those with long-term health needs due to serious illness or injury, who, after leaving hospital, are already receiving a planned programme of 100% NHS-funded Continuing Healthcare. Some people have already started applying for their budgets.

Individual patients will meet with their personal health budget support team to create a detailed support plan together. A personal health budget can be managed in any one of three ways. It can be given to a patient or individual responsible for the patient as a direct payment – social care recipients already have these. Alternatively, the money can be held by an approved third party. These are organisations which will help to agree the care that is needed for the patient, arrange it and hold the budget. Finally it can be held as a notional sum which a patient’s NHS team will spend in line with the patient’s agreed wishes.

It’s important to note that the patient will know how much money their care costs, and how it will be spent even if it is a notional budget.

Taking up a personal health budget is optional, and anyone who does not want to manage their healthcare needs in this way can leave their care arrangements as they are now. For further information on personal health budgets please visit www.personalhealthbudgets.england.nhs.uk/

Paying for your care the ‘personal budgets’ wayAn exciting opportunity for people to appoint their own healthcare providers is now available in Leicestershire and Rutland. From 1 October patients with long-term healthcare needs have the option to choose their own services, paid from by their own “personal health budget”.



How likely are you to recommend your GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?

That’s the question you’ll be invited to answer when you visit your GP’s surgery from December as part of a new national initiative.

You do not have to answer. It’s entirely optional, and all answers are anonymous. But if you do, the optional answers are ‘extremely likely’, ‘likely’, ‘neither likely nor unlikely’, ‘unlikely’, ‘extremely unlikely’ or ‘don’t know’.

There’ll also be room for a further comment in your own words, if you wish.

And from next year the numbers of times each

optional answer is chosen will be published monthly alongside the title of each GP practice.

Our CCG Managing Director, Dr Dave Briggs said: “The aim of the ‘friends and family test’ is that NHS patients should have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experience that can be used to improve services, such as by practices discussing the results with their patient participation groups. It is not about creating a ‘league table’ of GP practices.”

Practices must publish their own results locally.

The ‘friends and family test’ was first introduced into the NHS last year for services such as hospitals, and is now being extended. Patients who take part will not have to do so every time they use the NHS or visit their GP’s surgery, but they could if they wished.

Consensus Action on Salt and Health say cheese is one of the 10 biggest contributors of salt to the UK diet and claim cheese makers are not doing enough to reduce salt.

Blue cheeses such as Stilton are cited as having some of the highest salt levels.

Their study says salt content is much lower in supermarket own-brand cheeses than branded products, so it “demonstrates that it is technically possible to produce cheese with less salt in it”.

Billy Kevan, chairman of the

Stilton Cheesemakers’ Association and dairy manager at Colston Bassett Dairy, in the Vale of

Belvoir, told the Leicester Mercury: “We all know that too much salt is not good for you, but eating Stilton a few times a month is not the same as eating crisps or biscuits every day. Different cheeses have differing levels of salt – the balance of this ingredient plays a part in determining their individual characteristics and flavour profile.”

Tim Brown, of the Melton Cheeseboard shop, said: “You’re not going to live on cheese alone. But, as part of a healthy diet, it can be very beneficial as it contains many vital vitamins, minerals and calcium.”

Would you recommend your GP?

Stilton and salt adviceLeicestershire’s cheese industry has defended itself against criticisms from a group campaigning over high salt levels in food.



We will be running a series of articles in this magazine, so you can get a clearer picture of what takes place in our offices in Thurmaston. This issue will be focusing on how we buy healthcare services and how we manage them.

When we commission healthcare services for you, we start with a robust procurement process where we compare all of the potential providers to select the ones that can best deliver what’s needed and give you all high quality services that are value for money. Providers can be NHS healthcare organisations, such as Leicester hospitals, voluntary sector organisations, such as the LOROS hospice, or an independent company, like Derbyshire Health United Ltd, which provides our NHS 111 helpline.

Once the best provider has been established we agree a contract for these organisations to provide you with those services for an agreed number of years. Contracts like these are a key part of what makes the modern NHS work, and they are carefully drafted and scrutinised to ensure that you are always getting the best service, at the best possible price.

The main contracts are with three city hospitals, as well as mental healthcare and community health service providers.

It isn’t just local contracts that we look after. ELR CCG is also responsible for managing the contracts of a number of services which benefit the whole of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. They include the 999 ambulance service and non-emergency patient transport, GPs’ out-of-hours call services, and continuing non-hospital healthcare for patients with ongoing health needs.

Our work doesn’t end when the contract is signed, however. We manage these services closely throughout the contract period to ensure they do the job they were intended to do. This includes ensuring that we listen to what you have to say about them, as well as finding ways to improve them.

There are occasions where our contracts don’t perform as well as they should. These contracts are subjected to a rigorous process of assessment and

investigation, and there are several things that we can do to bring a contract back on track. These include imposing fines and other penalties, enacting deep dive investigations into the root causes of the problems and putting in place remedial action plans to bring the services back up to standard.

However, it’s best to see contracts as a means to an end, and that end is the quality of healthcare which you, your family and friends receive. The ultimate test is what you tell us, and that is taken into account when a contract comes up for renewal and we examine how it has worked so far and what may be needed to change it and improve it.

East Leicestershire and Rutland CCGWhat does

do for you?

At our first annual general meeting we set out to show visitors what our CCG does and how we work. We set out a range of stalls with interactive – and we hope interesting – ways to explain it.



An interactive guide for parents and carers of children aged from birth to five years has been produced by NHS East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group along with our neighbouring CCGs.It should prove a boon for busy mums and dads. It’s received some good national media coverage and it’s at www.healthforkids.co.uk – see what you think.

The Childhood health and well-being guide on our website includes information and advice on a baby’s first months, common childhood illnesses, general welfare and useful contacts. It is also available in a range of languages.

Julia McGinley, director of parent support at the popular Netmums parenting site, said: “New parents are busy and don’t always have time to wade through books and pamphlets – and that’s why this new interactive guide is so good. Mums and dads can go straight to the section they need and get precise and concise information on their child’s heath.

“With different language options plus text or sound choices, it means everyone can access it in the way which is best for them. We already know four in five parents turn to the internet for parenting help and this new guide will give peace of mind and reassure parents they can get the information they need when they want it.”

To view the guide online, or to download a copy, please use this link to East Leicestershire and Rutland CCG’s website.

Health for Kids

If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a look at the ground-breaking new website ‘Health for

Kids’ – developed by school nurses from Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) and over 60 children from Leicestershire’s primary schools.

The unique website is the first NHS website that has been created especially for children to learn about staying healthy and looking after their health.

The website features games, videos, and interactive content – written by experts from across LPT services including school nursing, health improvement, smoking cessation, dietetics, paediatricians, and mental health.

Separate sections for parents and teachers provide further advice.

The website currently features three games: Knight Nurse – gives children a chance to be a school knight nurse and treat the health problems of our mythical patients.

Poop Shooter – stop the alien from becoming constipated by clearing up space food in its belly, collecting as many poo points as you can before the poop-o-meter runs out!

Lanterns in the Wind – a therapeutic game giving children the chance to write down how they are feeling in an artistic way and encouraging them to share feelings with others.

Babies’ and small children’s health guide

is a click away



Learning lessons to improve CareAll three local Clinical Commissioning Groups and our key NHS partners have published a ‘quality review’ of cases where patients died either in hospital or within a month of leaving. The aim was to learn lessons about how care could be improved.

The quality review was commissioned because the mortality rate had been slightly above the expected level for the population and just above the average for the rest of the country since 2010/11.

Although it was still within expected limits, the local health community decided to follow the advice of National Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, and to investigate whether there were any local factors and what improvements could be made. The review was jointly commissioned by the three local CCGs along with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust and the University Hospitals of Leicester.

It focused on the healthcare patients received between March 2012 and June 2013 and looked at the care they received before admission to hospital, during their stay and after being discharged, including care from local GP and social care services.

The reviewers were not looking at whether there was ‘harm’ or ‘avoidable deaths’ but whether the quality of care was as good as it could be.

The review employed a unique approach, never before used in this country, which deliberately selected patients with complex cases, which increased the likelihood that care quality issues would be found. The review team specifically set out to look for problems, and they set the bar high in terms of care which was classed as ‘lessons to learn’ or ‘unacceptable’.

In all, 381 case records were reviewed by the team. Of the patient records considered, 64% of the patients died in hospital and 36 per cent died within the month after leaving.

They found ‘significant lessons to learn’ in just over half the cases reviewed. The issues included:

• confusion about Do Not Attempt Resuscitation (DNAR) orders

• delay in giving antibiotics

• communication problems between hospitals and GPs

• cases where a patient’s management plan was not clear.

Care that was unacceptable was found in 89 cases (23.4%). Of these 30 patients were admitted when they should have received other types of care such as end of life, palliative or continuing care.

Of the total sample of 381 case notes reviewed 79 (21%) were deemed to have had ‘unacceptable’ care in hospital and from at least one other healthcare provider.

Most of the issues related to patients who were on the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland emergency care pathway. For example the reviewers found that communication between different parts of the local health system and within hospital was poor which sometimes meant that diagnosis was delayed or test results were not acted upon in a timely manner.

As a result of this the local NHS has asked Dr Ian Sturgess, a renowned expert in emergency care, to work with both GPs and hospital doctors on ‘root and branch’ change to emergency care pathways. This work started two months ago and changes are already being made to practices and established procedures.



Learning lessons to improve Care

In order to improve end of life care for the future, the local NHS community will also be holding a series of listening events across Leicester and Leicestershire.

These events will bring together carers, volunteers, patients, charities and clinicians to talk about what constitutes quality end of life care when a patient reaches the stage when medical intervention is not in their best interests and how they can all work better together to make sure that they have the right conversations with patients and their families, no matter how difficult those conversations might be. It will also be urging all frontline doctors and nurses to discuss prognosis and future care plans for patients with serious illnesses at a much earlier stage.

Improvements in end of life care are already being seen. Since April 2013, more than 1,000 patients on the palliative care register in their last twelve months of life have benefitted from having an Emergency Healthcare Plan. As a result, 85% of patients who had a care plan died in their place of choice and their wishes were carried out – almost double the national average of 45%.

Dr Kevin Harris, Leicester hospitals’ Medical Director, and Prof Mayur Lakhani, GP Chair of West Leicestershire CCG, have apologised to patients and their families on behalf of NHS colleagues across the area. They said: “We take this report very seriously. As doctors we want to do much more for our patients and it is essential that we have a high quality

local joined up health care system. On the evidence of this review, we have let some people down. For this, we want to apologise to the families of all 89 patients whom the review found to have received substandard care and assure them that we are going to work tirelessly with our colleagues to make substantial and lasting improvements to the local health system.”

Dr Harris and Dr Lakhani have written to the relatives of all 381 patients, whose notes were reviewed, to explain the purpose and outcomes of the review.

The local healthcare community has also recently published its five year plan, Better Care Together, which aims to ensure much more integrated services which work better for patients. Implementation of this plan begins this year.

Dr Ron Hsu and Ms Lucy Douglas-Pannett, the study’s authors, said:

“We commend the local NHS organisations for commissioning this independent case records review by public health specialists and would like to thank the 49 local doctors and nurses who volunteered to review the cases for us.

“While the reviewers found cases of excellent care delivered by doctors, nurses and other clinicians in the local NHS, there was a worryingly wide variation in care which included care considered to be ‘unacceptable’. There was evidence of fractured care, dysfunctional processes and lack of joined up thinking throughout the NHS in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

“We recognise that doctors, nurses, other clinicians and managers in the local NHS have been struggling to fix the emergency care pathway as individuals rather than as part of a system. We urge all those working in the local NHS to work collaboratively to modernise and improve the emergency care pathway experienced by the patients whose cases we reviewed, so that doctors, nurses, other clinicians, managers and the people in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland can be proud of the care the NHS provides.”



Active Rutland Awards 2014The Active Rutland Community Sports Awards 2014 will take place on Wednesday 12 November 2014 at Greetham Valley, Hotel, Golf and Conference Centre.Charlotte Malyon, Development Manager at Rutland County Council, who helps run the awards scheme, said: “We are privileged to have such outstanding athletes, coaches, volunteers, sports clubs and projects within Rutland and this event allows us to highlight the hard work and commitment which goes into our success in Rutland.”

There are 14 awards recognising young people, adults and sports clubs that make an outstanding contribution to sport in Rutland.

The nomination deadline is 10 October 2014.

If you wish to nominate someone for an award, please complete the downloadable nomination form from www.activerutland.org.uk/communitysportsawards and return to Charlotte Malyon at Rutland County Council, Catmose, Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6HP or email to [email protected]

For further information or guidance please contact Charlotte Malyon on 01572 720932.

The Rutland Activity Guide is now out with 24 pages listing plenty of regular and special events over the coming months.

It is available on the Active Rutland website www.activerutland.org.uk – just go to the bottom of the left-hand column and look for ‘Activity Guide’.

Awards categories• Sportswoman of the Year• Sportsman of the year• Young Sportswoman of the year• Young Sportsman of the year• Junior Sportswoman of the year• Junior Sportsman of the year• Disabled Sportspersons Award• Active For Life award• Volunteer of the Year• Coach of the Year• Club of the Year• Community Award• Lifetime Achievement Award• Sports Project of the Year

Our cover star: Active AnaRanked number 1 in the county at under-14s in 2012 and winner of East Anglia Junior Open Under-14s the same year, our cover girl Ana Webber has this year been appearing in Nike Junior International Tournaments in Nottingham and Edinburgh. Active Rutlander Ana was funded by through the GO GOLD funding scheme, run by the Leicester-Shire & Rutland Sport Competitions Board and supported by Leicestershire County Council, Leicester City

Council and Rutland County Council, aimed at progressing talented athletes and coaches. Leicester-Shire & Rutland Sport (LRS) wants to make Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland the most sporting and physically active place in England by working with partners to provide physical activity opportunities to encourage people to move more often. If you’d like to know more, take an online look at www.lrsport.org/beactive.



Good news heartThe most obvious symptom of atrial fibrillation

(AF) is becoming aware of a fast and irregular heartbeat – or ‘palpitations’ – usually over 100 beats a minute. Without preventative treatment one in 20 patients a year with the condition will have a stroke.

We estimate there are just over 480 patients with undiagnosed AF in East Leicestershire and Rutland.

Many patients with AF are treated with aspirin, but it is now accepted that it has a limited role to play in stroke prevention, and other approaches are available. A process called anticoagulation reduces the risk of stroke by about 70%.

Our training programme will enable GPs to better diagnose, manage and treat patients with AF.

We are inviting local GPs to take part and the training will start later this year.

Take it to heart

We are also providing GPs with a rapid advice service to help them in the diagnosis of heart failure, and to help GPs treat such patients if the condition is diagnosed.

This will cut out need for some patients to be referred to specialists at hospital outpatient appointments, which may not be available for up to

10 weeks, during which time their condition may become worse.

And for patients who are in hospital with the suspected symptoms of heart failure, but who may not have needed to have been there, we are setting up a ‘one-stop rapid access clinic’ to review their condition, normally in 72 hours.

Where it’s right to do so, patients will be able to go home earlier with the correct clinical support.

It does your heart good

We are also launching a trial series of rehabilitation and exercise sessions for heart failure patients to see what benefits they might bring.

Currently there are no heart failure rehab services in Leicestershire and Rutland. Exercise is recommended in national guidelines for such patients. It significantly reduces breathlessness and improves quality of life.

So we have asked Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust to put on three six-week programmes of two hours each. Each session will involve about an hour of exercise, such as walking and cycling, and a further hour of discussions on managing heart failure.

The exercise programme will be specially tailored and prescribed for each patient, and it will be delivered by a specialist heart failure clinical team. The venues for the sessions are yet to be decided, but the aim is to hold them in easily accessible community locations,

not in Leicester City.

We are sharing this trial programme with our neighbours West Leicestershire CCG, and there will be a report on it effectiveness after the programme has ended.

Our CCG is launching a training scheme to help GPs tackle a heart condition that could increase the risk of stroke.

from the



Healthwatch Leicestershire is actively recruiting members to strengthen its voice on care issues across the county.In the first month of recruitment more than 100 people have joined and they believe that be healthy, be heard members would find they have a lot in common with Healthwatch public members.

Healthwatch Leicestershire wants to hear about the services you, or someone you know, receives such as doctors, dentists, hospitals, day care centres or care homes.

They make you the following pledges:

• Working on your behalf we will make sure that your voice is heard and acted on.

• We will tell service providers about your experiences of care and hold them to account.

• We will challenge organisations about poor practice and help to turn it into good practice.

• We will represent your views at meetings with local decision makers to ensure your needs are considered.

Complete the form online to have your say about the health and social care services in Leicestershire. Just go to: www.healthwatchleicestershire.co.uk/sign-up

Why not join Healthwatch

too?

It’s flu jab season again and this month sees the Long Clawson’s Patient Participation Group (PPG) holding its first Health Fair. The PPG has taken the innovative step of combining its flu vaccination clinic with the Fair on Saturday 11 October, from 9am until 12 noon at the Long Clawson Village Hall.

Patients of the Vale Medical Group, which covers the Long Clawson

Medical Practice, Long Clawson Pharmacy and Woolsthorpe surgeries, have been invited to book their flu jabs through the practice and then stick around to enjoy the hospitality of the local WI, get their blood pressure checked, join in a poster competition, sample a Pilates class and find out more about how they can stay healthy – as well as sharing their experiences of the NHS at our CCG’s ‘listening booth’.

Milk, sugar and a flu jab?



Seasonal food at its best Seasonal food for Autumn

(September, October & November)

Vegetables• Beetroot• Carrot• Celeriac• Fennel• Field – Mushrooms• Kale• Leeks• Lettuce• Marrow• Potatoes• Pumpkin• Rocket• Sorrel• Squashes• Sweetcorn• Tomatoes • Watercress

Fruits• Apples• Blackberries• Damsons• Elderberries• Pears• Plums• Quince• Sloes

Food that is in season is best because that is when you get the most flavor and highest nutritional value. It’s also cheaper. Here’s two recipe’s to use those prefect Autumn fresh produce.

Masala curry potatoes with cumin and tomatoesThis simple dish is a delicious way to enjoy Indian flavours and is great with a side salad for lunch.Serves: 4 adultsPreparation time: 5 minsCooking time: 25 minsIngredients:• 350g salad potatoes• 1 tbsp olive oil• 400g chopped tomatoes• 1 red chilli finely chopped• 1 tsp ground coriander• 1 tsp cumin seeds• 1 medium onion chopped• 2 tbsp fresh coriander choppedWhat to do:1. First, wash the potatoes and cut into 2cm cubes.2. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a saucepan and add the cumin and ground coriander and onion. Fry for 5 minutes.3. Add the chilli and potatoes and season with salt and pepper.4. Add 200ml water, cover and cook for 8 minutes.5. Add the tinned tomatoes and cook uncovered for a further 5-7 minutes or until tender.6. Stir in the fresh coriander just before serving.Nutritional information:Per adult portion (i.e. ¼ recipe)• 372kJ / 89kcal• 0.6g fat• 0.2g saturated fat• 0.1g salt• 4.5g sugar

Spiced fruit with cinnamon soldiersThis is a lovely way to enjoy a fresh fruit salad throughout the chillier months.Serves: 4 adultsPreparation time: 10 minsCooking time: 8 minsIngredients:• 4 plums pitted and sliced• 2 ripe pears cored and sliced• 100ml unsweetened apple juice• ½ tsp ground mixed spice

(optional)• 25g sultanas• 1 orange• 4 slices wholemeal bread• 1 pinch ground cinnamon for

sprinkling• 4 tbsp low-fat natural yoghurtWhat to do:1. Put the plums and pears into a saucepan with the apple juice and 3 tablespoons of water. Add the mixed spice (if using) and sultanas or raisins. Cook gently for about 6-8 minutes, until the plums and pears are tender.2. While they are cooking, use a sharp serrated knife to remove all the peel and pith from the orange. Slice the flesh into segments, removing all the membrane. Add the segments to the saucepan and stir gently to mix them in, then share the fruit between 4 serving dishes.

3. Sprinkle the slices of bread with a little ground cinnamon, then toast them lightly. Top each fruit salad with 1 tablespoon of low fat yoghurt and serve with the cinnamon toast.Nutritional information:• Per portion (i.e. ¼ recipe)• 799kJ / 191kcal• 6g protein• 1g fat of which 0.4g saturates• 4g dietary fibre• 199mg sodium equivalent to

0.5g salt

Top tip: Food that is locally grown and in season is the freshest.

These recipes and more can be found at www.nhs.uk/Change4Life


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East Leicestershire and Rutland CCG Members Magazine Autumn 2014

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Transcript of East Leicestershire and Rutland CCG Members Magazine Autumn 2014