Our health & care service

Our services

Care should be joined up with the person at its heart, and local with teams working together.

Our health and care services

We need to provide better joined up care. Too often we focus on each particular illness or need separately, rather than the individual. Our care should be joined up with the person at its heart, and local with teams working together. That will help us tackle inequalities in service in different areas and communities as well.

But small changes won’t deliver that. Instead we’re working across the whole system.

Learn more about what needs to change:

Urgent and emergency care

Too many people are in hospital for too long - it’s not good for them and it’s costly; sometimes they don’t need to be there at all
Expert stroke doctors tell us that our acute stroke services would provide better outcomes for patients if they were concentrated in fewer places
There aren’t enough staff to run rehabilitation services in our community hospitals, and ...
Patients and staff say the system is complicated and confusing
Patients often spend time recovering from illness in our 13 community hospitals. These hospitals are mostly relatively small and it has been increasingly difficult to recruit the staff needed to enable them to operate safely

Long term health conditions and frailty

Support for staying healthy in later life could be better
Care needs to be centred around the needs of the individual, with support for them to manage their own conditions better
People aren’t diagnosed early enough
Health care for some conditions isn’t always managed as early as it should be which can create unnecessary crises for patients, and ...
Services for people who are frail differ across Somerset and aren’t joined up

Cancer

Our timescales for treatment don’t always meet national standards
Better accessibility to services that diagnose and screen for cancer for everyone is essential; there are currently some gaps
Greater support and awareness for changes in lifestyles linked to cancer and early identification of potential symptoms, and ...
Treatment for people with cancer should be centred around the needs of the patient, with fewer delays

Planned care

Tests for diagnosis aren’t always carried out within the 6 weeks required to meet national standards and patient need
People are often waiting too long for treatment; in some non-urgent specialities the time can be up to a year
Clinical staff in some of our smaller specialisms are spread thinly, which makes providing a local service difficult, and …
Outpatient services are outdated and inefficient in the way specialist consultant time is used; the experience for patients should be better.

Mental health and learning disabilities

We have gaps in community mental health services which means people aren’t supported in their own homes, and puts pressure on our hospital stays
Diagnosis and treatment often takes too long
Services are struggling to meet demand and aren’t joined up
Not enough is being done for people with mild or moderate mental health issues, and …
A lack of investment over a number of years means services have fallen short in supporting people’s emotional and mental health wellbeing

Children's and Maternity Services

Choices for women about where they give birth, and the local obstetric support available, varies depending where they live
Major gaps in mental health services for women in the weeks up to and after birth leave some women unsupported
Unplanned admissions of children to hospital are far too high and many of them may be avoidable
Support for children and families to help deal with behavioural issues needs to be strengthened
Children and families can fall in gaps between different agencies and services, including the transition from children’s to adult services
Inconsistency of services across the county is a big issue - antenatal and postnatal; community paediatrics; and choices about where to give birth

What

What it means for all of us

How

Shape out future health and care together

Our services

Our health and care services

What

How

Useful links

Useful links