Health watchdog Pembrokeshire Community Health Council will shortly be looking for a small number of new members. Recruitment for the 'new intake' of volunteers starts this month, with the successful candidates taking up office in April next year. In the spring, as a result of changes brought in by the Welsh Assembly Government, the number of county councillors serving on the community health council will be reduced from seven to five.

A member of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council complained during their recent meeting that the council was embarking on the path of secretiveness, and this was against all that the health watchdog stood for with regard to openness and transparency.

Prior to the September public meeting of the council, members had been invited to attend a private meeting behind closed doors to discuss key issues of interest and concern.

However, chairman Geoff Wright responded that there had been a precedence on a previous occasion, and that the private meeting was not intended to disguise debate.

Pioneering visits

Pioneering visits by members of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council to GP practices are drawing to a close this autumn. This is the first year that the health watchdog has had visiting rights to surgeries, and the programme has included all the county's 18 practices. According to the visiting teams, members had received an excellent welcome and had found the standards within the premises to be good.

During the September meeting of the council, a member asked if the GP monitoring visits included looking at the needs of child patients, and adults with additional needs. She was told that a planned review of the visits would provide more knowledge on the outcomes, but patients had clearly expressed their views that they were happy with the services received.

North Pembrokeshire patients want to keep their branch surgery at Crymych. That was the message from the community, according to the chief officer of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council, Ashley Warlow.

When the council met recently, Mr. Warlow explained that there was overwhelming support to keep the surgery open, despite a proposal from the doctors at the main Whitland surgery to close the outlying facility.

It was agreed to support the community in their efforts to keep the branch surgery at Crymych open, whilst recognising there were some problems with the premises that needed to be rectified.

Tenby hospital

The redevelopment of Tenby Cottage Hospital is scheduled for completion on time at the end of this year, members of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council heard when they met recently. The council were assured by Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust that the project will continue to be tightly managed.

Care staff in residential units have been most co- operative with the ambulance service, members of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council were told last month. Council members had long expressed their concern that ambulances were being called out to put elderly, but uninjured residents who had fallen out of bed, back into bed. Council members have long felt this was not the best use of the hard pressed emergency service.

They were pleased to hear that if the ambulance received two or more calls to the same address, then they would visit the home, and look at the care package in cooperation with the care staff, who had been very helpful.

A meeting has also been arranged between Pembrokeshire Community Health Council chairman Geoff Wright, and Pembrokeshire County Council's director of Social Services. Community Health Council members have been critical of the county council for its apparent ignorance of interagency protocols which deal with the problem.

Proposed health cuts

With proposed health cuts making the county's headlines, the biggest concern is for the local mental health and learning disabilities services, members of Pembrokeshire Community Health Council heard last month. Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust has proposed the cuts in order to make savings to meet Welsh Assembly targets.

The health watchdog has been assured that the trust can meet all its targets for services controlled by Pembrokeshire, but could not give a similar assurance for services provided by visiting consultants, which are beyond the control of the trust.

The trust's acting chief executive Mary Hodgeon said her greatest concern was for mental health services, which are already in the middle of change.

The current challenge is to spend the £142 million allocated to Pembrokeshire patients in a modern and wiser way, added Mrs. Hodgeon. She gave an assurance that there was no freeze on nursing recruitment.

The difficulty was attracting doctors, nurses and dentists to the county, according Pembrokeshire Local Health Board chairman Chris Martin.

"It's difficult to manage the budget if the service is propped up by locums," Mr. Martin told the September meeting of the community health council. According to Mrs. Hodgeon, solutions need to be sought through the close co operation across Dyfed. NHS services across the three counties serve a population of nearly 400,000.

For all enquiries in respect of this press release please contact the Chief Officer, Mr. Ashley Warlow at Suite 2, Cedar Court, Haven's Head Business Park, Milford Haven.