One Message from the chief executive
Change or be changed
Dear colleague,
I am absolutely delighted to be able to
welcome 1,200 new members of staff to the
St George’s Healthcare family this month
following the integration of Community
Services Wandsworth on 1st October 2010.
Community Services Wandsworth now
becomes the community services division
of the trust, with Di Caulfeild-Stoker as the
divisional chair.
This exciting change will significantly
improve care for local people by providing
more services in their own homes,
reducing unnecessary admissions to
hospital and helping patients leave hospital
as soon as it is safe for them to do so.
Profile of community services
Many colleagues will already be familiar
with services provided at Queen Mary’s
Hospital in Roehampton. These include
outpatient rapid diagnostic and treatment
facilities, a minor injuries unit, limb fitting
services and 70 elderly, intermediate care
and rehabilitation beds.
However, you might not be so well
acquainted with the full spectrum of
community services including district
nursing, health visiting, therapies, sexual
health, specialist nursing and services for
Our values people with learning difficulties. These
services are provided from St John’s
+ excellent + Therapy Centre, 11 health centres across
Wandsworth, Dawes House intermediate
+ kind + care unit, Tooting Walk-in Centre, schools,
nurseries and in people’s own homes.
+ responsible + The community services division also
+ respectful + provides a full range of health services at
Wandsworth Prison, the largest prison in
the UK with up to 1,665 inmates at any
time.
October 2010
The winds of change
You will all by now be fully aware of the
major changes that are sweeping across
the public sector and from which the
NHS is not immune. Many of you will
have friends and family employed in local
NHS organisations and will know what
the implications are for our colleagues
in primary care and commissioning
organisations.
These changes within the local health
economy will be unsettling, but at St
George’s Healthcare we are in the fortunate
position of being able to influence our own
future. But colleagues must understand
that standing still is not an option, the clear
message is change or be changed.
More than at any time in the past, we have
the capacity to build on the strengths of
existing services and partnerships and to
redesign pathways around the needs of our
patients.
Integration has given us a fantastic
platform to build on for the future and is
central to our vision to become a thriving
Foundation Trust (FT) by 2015.
The road to integration
Staff in community services have been
working towards integration since
the Department of Health published
Transforming Community Services in
January 2009. This set target for community
services to split from their host primary
care trusts and become new types of
organisation that would best meet
the future needs of patients and local
communities.
In December 2009 St George’s Healthcare
was chosen from a strong field as the
preferred partner for community services. I
 would like to thank everyone who has been
involved in this project for the enormous
amount of hard work that has got us to
this stage. Now the real work of making
integration a success begins.
A more joined-up workforce will enable St
George’s Healthcare to play a greater role
in the prevention of ill health and focus our
resources on developing integrated clinical
teams providing even better care closer to
where people live.
Many of you will already have been
involved in the development of more
integrated care pathways between primary,
community and hospital services for people
in Wandsworth. It will be exciting to see the
benefits of this work for patients over the
coming months and years.
They key to a joined-up health and social
care system is appreciating the differences
and values of each service so we can
best work together for the benefit of all
Wandsworth residents, including those
patients who choose to go to another
hospital.
Working together for better care
Several clinical working groups have been
exploring how we can improve services and
pathways, not just across acute, community
and primary care, but also with social
services and the voluntary sector.
For example, the urgent care workgroup
has been working towards developing a
primary care led urgent care centre on the
St George’s Hospital site, which would see
the existing Tooting Walk-in Centre migrate
to the front of A&E. Studies of established
Our values urgent care centres across the country have
been shown to reduce hospital admissions
+ excellent + by between 5-7 per cent.
on with plans to develop sexual and
reproductive health services into a series of
one-stop shops. Available at a wide range
of sites across the borough, this service will
address the specific needs of local young
people and hard to reach groups.
Although the work so far has been focused
on specific areas, over the next few months
clinical and management teams will
identify additional areas where clinical
pathways can be changed to improve
quality of care and patient experience.
If you would like to find out more about
community services, come to the Open
Forum at 2pm, Friday 22nd October in
the Hyde Park Room, on the first floor of
the Lanesborough Wing. The forum will
also give you the opportunity to ask any
questions you have.
Change of any kind is never easy and can
only be successful with open engagement
with staff. I encourage all of you to get
involved and to send any ideas about how
we might improve our services to patients
to me via the communications unit email
address communications@stgeorges.nhs.uk
Regards
David Astley
Chief executive

+ kind + In addition, the older peoples’ services

workgroup has been developing pathways
+ responsible + for older people in Wandsworth across
health and social care. As part of the work
+ respectful + to strengthen partnerships, the geriatric
medicine care group has now moved into
the community services division.

Integration will also allow us to push