Our Foundation Trust Application
Outcome of the consultation
The formal consultation on our proposals to become an NHS Foundation Trust took place from Monday 6 November 2006 until Friday 2 February 2007.
The consultation and staff engagement process was extremely positive. There was almost universal acceptance of our application to become an NHS Foundation Trust, and for our service development priorities, governance arrangements and recruitment of members.
The general public showed a great deal of support and loyalty for the hospital generally and little dissention from our proposed governance arrangements. The one change that we made was to move the population of the Christchurch district from the Bournemouth part of our public constituency and include it in that for the district of Purbeck and East Dorset. This was done as a result of comments made by the Bournemouth Health Scrutiny Committee and more closely aligns our constituency to the OSC boundaries.
The only areas that attracted negative comment from members of the public and patients were outside of the scope of the consultation. These comments concerned difficulty of access, car parking and waiting times in outpatient clinics. This has been very useful intelligence for the Trust and we listened carefully to what people have told us about their experience of care at our Trust. We included them as areas for action within our annual business plan for 2007/08.
There was discussion among all groups about future financial issues and support for the new freedoms which come with being an NHS Foundation Trust. Local people and patient groups enthusiastically accepted that our governance proposals would bring greater democracy into future decision making and were keen to find out how they could become more involved.
Each public meeting was attended by at least one member of the Poole PPI Forum, both as its chosen way to participate in the consultation and to ensure that we conducted the process properly.
Poole, Bournemouth and Dorset Health Scrutiny Committees each supported our proposals, with the one area of dissention and change requested by Bournemouth. We were supported by both Primary Care Trusts and the strategic health authority, NHS South West. Patient groups and community organisationsalso supported our proposals.