The NHS across Sussex has agreed its immediate and long-term priorities for improvement to health services for local people.
Health and care services across the whole country have been under increasing pressure for many years due to growing numbers of people needing to use them. This winter has been one of the most challenging for the NHS and this has meant not everyone has received the right care, at the right time, or in the right place for their needs over recent months.
A lot of work has taken place across services to manage the pressures and ensure local people continue to receive safe and high-quality care. Additional measures were put in place across Sussex health and care organisations over the very busy New Year period which helped ease some of the pressure.
However, services are expected to remain very busy and more long-standing changes and improvements need to be made to make sure the pressures being seen today do not become the norm or get worse.
There are many reasons for the increasing pressure on services, including:
- The growing and ageing population in Sussex that means more people than ever now need support and care
- The need to carry on reducing the waiting lists for planned operations and procedures that built up during the pandemic
- Shortages of staff and expertise to do everything that needs to be done
Additionally, more needs to be done to help prevent people becoming ill in the first place and to reduce the big differences in health that exists for people living in different parts of Sussex, particularly those who are most disadvantaged.
To tackle these issues, health and care organisations across Sussex have agreed short and long-term priorities for improvement that will bring about the biggest benefit for local people.
Over the coming year, improvements will be made across four key areas:
- Increasing access to and reducing variability in primary care – to help more people get appointments at their GP practice as quickly as possible
- Improving response times to 999 calls and reducing A&E waiting times – to help the sickest patients get the emergency care they need as quickly as possible
- Reducing diagnostic and planned care waiting lists – to help people get the operation or procedure they need as quickly as possible
- Accelerating patient flow through the system and discharge from hospitals – to help make sure people do not have to stay in hospital any longer than absolutely necessary.
In addition to these immediate priorities, our five-year Sussex Integrated Care Strategy, Improving Lives Together, sets out our long-term ambition to improve our health and care services in Sussex by:
- Building integrated community teams and local partnerships across Brighton & Hove, East Sussex and West Sussex – to allow services and organisations to work in a joined-up way to better meet the needs of each local community
- Growing and supporting our Sussex health and care workforce – to attract more people to work in health and care, as well as supporting and developing the skills or careers of our existing staff
- Improving the use of digital technology and information – to help join-up our services and enable people to access advice or care more easily
