Video: Ashfield Health Village £1.4 million cash boost will make it a vibrant centre for well-being says health chief

That was the message from health chiefs this week who said the Health village was at ‘the start of a journey’.

This week Chad spoke to Andrea Brown, Director of membership engagement and innovation for Ashfield and Mansfield Clinical Commissioning Group, (CCG) which is driving forward the project.

The plan announced last week will see the transformation of parts of the former community hospital to provide a home to a range of community services under one roof.

The health village has been the focus of controversy in recent years as it has moved away from bed-based services.

It has closed its walk-in centre and transferred it to King’s Mill Hospital.

Then in January last year the Chatsworth Ward was moved to Mansfield Community Hospital and the stroke rehabilitation unit was moved to King’s Mill hospital.

Those empty wards will now be revamped to house a range of services in a ‘community hub’.

Patients will be helped more to manage their conditions themselves and help prevent illnesses occurring in the first place.

Andrea Brown said the investment will make the centre ‘fit for purpose’ and much more ‘vibrant’, offering services that are needed today.

She said: “We are moving with the times about how we are providing services to our population.

“The health village has previously provided dementia care, stroke rehabilitation and a physical and neurophysical disabilities unit along with out patient treatment centres.

“As a result of changes in which health care is delivered, the dementia services have now moved to different models of care and we have reallocated patients who still needed bed based care.”

The new hub will provide advice on welfare, benefits, debts and smoking cessation.

She explained: “We are now opening up the facility to offer a wider and broader range of services, for not only health care but wider determinants of health care and that is in the development of the community hub.

“The residents of Ashfield and Mansfield will be able to access different services, so when they have anxieties around issues that may be related to benefits or debt issues or broader aspects, there is a point of call where they can come in, receive advice and guidance or signposted to an appropriate service.

“That means quick intervention around issues that can be possibly resolved avoiding getting into conditions which then start to impact on their health.

“Anxiety and depression, for example can have quite a significant impact.

“We are in our Better Together programme looking at self management and quite often that can be misunderstood as passing the responsibility of care back to the patient.

“They could even believe they were being left isolated.

“What we mean by self-care is that we work with patients to agree a care plan which isn’t always about what the medical treatment might be, particularly for patients with long term conditions.

“It may be how do they improve their quality of life, how do they get to be more social and get more outgoing rather than housebound .

“By having a community hub with access to a wide range of networks they can learn from each other how to deal with problems and feel less isolated as being part of a group.

“One example could be us helping to connecting them to transport services so they can be more mobile.”

As well as being used to refurbish empty wards, to be used as bases for the new services and for training, the extra cash will also help enhance the clinical services at the village.

A section of the village will be for integrated adult care and another for children and family.

She said: “We are looking at the breadth of our population not just focusing on one sector, which is what the hospital did previously.

“We are now opening it up from child up to frail elderly in lots of new ways.”

“We already have a collection of really good quality services like the COPD service, the community paediatrics and well-being teams, but what we are going to do is co-locate them so they become more integrated.”

People who would benefit from more than one of those services could get advice and access in the same place.

“Quite often a professional might not know where to refer and by creating the hub and the online service it will make professionals aware what’s available.”

A new information technology system will help patients access information and the new services to operate from the site with easy, safe and secure access.

Andrea Brown said the health village had already continued to develop services since the ward closures and there had been investment in intermediate community mental health and the family nurse partnerships supporting young mums were fully used.

She said: “Clinical facilities have been increased with dermatology now offered from within the site and more memory assessment clinics are available.

“In terms of the walk-in, we have a Primary Care service here which links with the Primary Care centre at King’s Mill Hospital.

“We have commissioned for the residents of Ashfield to be able to access appointments out of hours at this centre.

Around the health village there are a number of practices that deliver primary care services. Kirkby Primary Care Centre is within the village itself and we have at least four or five others that are in close walking distance.”

She said residents should have absolutely no need to worry about the future of the centre: “This is the start of a journey and we will keep everyone informed as things develop.”