300 delegates attend Nene launch event

The launch of NHS Nene Clinical Commissioning Group, the organisation which will take on responsibility for purchasing health services for the majority of people in Northamptonshire, was a great success.

Just under 300 people attended the all-day event at Northampton Saints Rugby Football Club, Franklins Gardens, Northampton on Tuesday 29 May 2012 including patients, members of the public, carers, voluntary organisations, NHS staff and other stakeholders.

In the morning Dr Darin Seiger, the Chairman, and Ben Gowland, the Chief Executive of Nene told delegates about Nene, the changes to the NHS, what we have achieved so far, and our plans for the future. We also spoke about our engagement work which included contacting 10,000 people with whom we had existing relationships and speaking to 1500 members of the public face to face in a range of settings including shopping centres and pubs. From our surveys we found that 19% of people had heard of Nene, while the top three priorities for health spending were cancer, heart disease and stroke. Councillor Robin Brown, Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care at Northamptonshire County Council, also gave a presentation about the new Health and Wellbeing Board.

In the afternoon, there were breakout discussion groups for each of the eight Nene localities. Nene is structured by locality and each has a Locality GP Chair and Senior Locality Manager, to ensure that decision making is done with local input with our patients and stakeholders. The aim is that those who attended the event and took part in the discussion groups will go on to form the local patient participation groups (PPGs).

The Localities are Daventry, East Northants, Kettering, Northampton Central, Northampton West, Northampton South and East, South Northamptonshire, Wellingborough. This will help us decide at a local level what the priorities are as we recognise that different areas have different needs and it’s not necessarily a 'one size fits all' approach.

Dr Darin Seiger, Chair of NHS Nene Clinical Commissioning Group, said: "This is an exciting time for the NHS. Changes to the way services are commissioned and who makes these decisions mean that it is timely for us to meet with public to find out what people’s priorities are. Nene Commissioning is at the forefront of these changes and we want to take you on the journey with us.

"I would like to thank all those who attended our event and helped make it such a great success."

Click here to view the presentations from the Shaping Your Healthcare Nene launch event.

Click here to read a summary version of our Integrated Strategic Operating Plan which outlines our plans and priorities for the coming year.

Click here to view our case study on the Community Elderly Care Service

Click here to view our case study on the End of Life service

Click here to view our Mental Health case study

Click here to find out more about the Health and Wellbeing Board and its draft strategy 2012 - 2015