Doctors, nurses, and other health and care professionals will work together across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to use the best treatments and technology available.
Where it is important to provide services from several sites across the area, we believe we can use our skills and expertise collectively to achieve better results through doctors and nurses working across more than one hospital site and sharing their expertise.
We expect that maternity services will also remain at the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge, at Hinchingbrooke Hospital, and at Peterborough City Hospital.
Evidence tells us that standardised care is often higher quality and lower cost. Networking between medical professionals will help us to deliver savings, as well as helping to ensure that the additional costs associated with increased clinical standards, especially seven day services, are minimised.
Networks of care
Where services are provided from more than one site, we will use specialised skills and expertise
collectively to raise quality everywhere.
Medical professionals at our hospitals are beginning to agree how to work as operational networks for planned, unplanned,
routine, and specialised care. These networks will share information about appropriate patient referrals and the best
treatment, and building workforce resilience through better career development and shared out of hours arrangements.
Patient choice hub
Improving quality of referrals and align capacity and demand.
A new patient choice hub is being developed with the aim of improving quality of referrals, ensuring that clinical thresholds
are adhered to, that capacity and demand are lined-up across available providers, and managing procedures across the health system rather than in organisations.
Centres of clinical excellence
Clinical consistent pathways across all providers to improve outcomes and efficiency, with
fewer, more specialist centres across our hospitals.
We need to create centres of clinical excellence that use consistent procedures and policies across all service providers.
We have identified some quality and efficiency benefits from combining procedures.
• Orthopaedics: We are considering centralising specialised orthopaedic trauma services (such as fragility fractures from
falls) at Peterborough City Hospital and Addenbrooke’s Hospital, to achieve a higher standard of care.
We are also investigating the case for reconfiguring planned orthopaedic services, by increasing the number of low-complex procedures at Hinchingbrooke Hospital (such as routine knee and hip replacements), to improve the
quality and sustainability of services at all three hospitals. We expect to consult on these proposals in 2017.
• Stroke: National stroke indicators show that we perform below the national average on a number of stroke areas, including access to specialist rehab and early-supported discharge. In addition, inpatient and community bed-based stroke and neurological rehabilitation care is fragmented across multiple sites.
In order to improve the services offered to our patients we are considering providing all bed-based stroke and
neurological rehabilitation on a single site and to establish an enhanced early-support discharge team, so many more patients can receive rehabilitation and support at home. We expect to consult on these proposals in 2017.
We have also considered whether we need one or two hyperacute stroke units (we have one in Cambridge and one in Peterborough), and have concluded that at present we should retain our two hyperacute stroke units.
Modern maternity
Improving quality, choosing home births, standardisation and continuity.
For obstetric and neo-natal services we have considered the viability of our three obstetric (maternity) units, each with a colocated midwife-led unit, and concluded that all three should remain. However, we need to enhance networking between the three units to share knowledge and improve care for expectant mothers and women in labour.
Acute paediatrics
Supported by strengthened community services.
Hospital stays for children and young people should be kept to a minimum. We will develop community care with enhanced
community nursing, and with GPs and paediatricians working better together.
