Trust Board Febuary 2010 - Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals

SWBTB (2/10) 045 (a)
followed the principles of Listening into Action (LiA) and asked staff to consider a number of potential
service models and to highlight benefits and issues with each for women and staff. 110 staff attended
the workshops and included staff based at both Hospitals and from a range of professional backgrounds
and specialities. The feedback from these events was used to inform the development of options and
the evaluation criteria.
The Project Steering Group attended two meetings of the Working Group of the Joint Health Scrutiny
Committee as part of the pre-consultation engagement and shared proposals, short listed options, the
draft consultation document and proposed consultation framework. Discussion at these meetings raised
some important issues and resulted in helpful changes to the short listed options to be included in the
consultation (in particular the exclusion of the ‘Do Minimum’ option), draft consultation document and
framework.
Following agreement at the September meetings of the Trust and Sandwell PCT Boards, Sandwell PCT
commenced formal public consultation on the three short listed options was commenced on 12 th October
2009. An external consultancy developed the consultation document, recorded public meetings,
received and analysed the responses to the consultation to produce a document presenting the outcome
of the public consultation. In addition six staff engagement events, following Listening into Action
principles, were held for Trust staff involved in delivering maternity services, with over seventy staff from
a range of roles, grades and speciality areas attending these events. The Project Steering Group
attended two Joint Health Scrutiny Committee meetings – one in October to present the consultation
and one in January to present the interim findings from the public consultation and answer further
questions.
The document reporting the outcomes of public consultation is being presented to the Board at its
meeting in February 2010 but key issues are summarised here. The findings from the public
consultation process are taken from a variety of sources including:
• 21 focus groups (15 in Sandwell and 6 in Heart of Birmingham areas), facilitated by Merida
Associates (who kept written records of each group).
• 7 public meetings (4 in Sandwell and 3 in HOB).
• Sandwell PCT and HOBtPCT Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) teams visited a number of
maternity service sessions, such as antenatal clinics, to complete the questionnaire with people
accessing services.
• Sandwell PCT PPI staff provided questions and comments sheets from presentations given to
125 people from the community though Sandwell Link, the Patient Experience Forum and
voluntary and community organisations.
• Comments from Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (12th January 2010)
• Comment from RCRH (30th October 2009) and
• Staff consultation activity carried out by SWBH Trust with over 70 staff, plus another 11 people
through informal consultation.
Everyone who attended a focus group or public meeting was encouraged (and supported) to complete a
maternity services medium term review questionnaire.
The above resulted in 780 completed questionnaires from within the consultation document or via
websites and sent directly to Merida Associates for analysis, using a freepost address.
Of the 780 people who completed the questionnaires:
• 682 (88%) were women
• 63 (8%) were men (35 people gave no answer to the question about gender).
• 30 (4%) identified themselves as having a disability with a further 9 people indicating they were
not sure whether or not they were disabled.
16