Hi, I’m Geoff Jolliffe. I’m a GP here in Barrow-in-Furness, part of the Lancashire and South Cumbria. And I’m also the Chair of the CCG in Morecambe Bay.
I sit on the Clinical Oversight Group for the New Hospitals Programme.
What is it, the New Hospitals Programme? It’s a great opportunity, isn’t it? It’s big lump of money to redevelop our hospitals.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we can’t miss it. It’s going to be great for the population.
The New Hospitals Programme might seem to not mean much to primary care but it’s actually vital isn’t it. Because we care for our patients and our patients need good hospital care as part of the whole pathway.
So, there will be a huge knock-on benefit to our patients and therefore to the way primary care works.
An eye to the future, with more care closer to the patient’s homes, more care in community services. And we need to focus on doing in hospital only what we need to do.
In addition, they provide an environment that is better for staff, better for patients and an environment where patients flow better so you end up with better outcomes.
But assuming we get the money, and I’m hopeful of that, we can then start the process of identifying which is the best solution to spending that money.
There’s a big process so it can’t happen overnight, but we’ll get there, and we’ll have them.