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The Yorkshire Post are reporting: Health fears spell end of the road for foot clinics
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PATIENTS who attend clinics for treatment to their feet in village halls across the Harrogate district are to be told most of the premises are unsuitable.
For over 25 years the clinics in seven village halls have been popular with people living in small rural communities, but the local service to 130 people is coming to an end.
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust's director of business development, Sam Prince, says most of the halls do not meet professional or health and safety standards.
They are said to be unfit for the purpose of providing a clinical service and the privacy and dignity of patients are compromised through the lack of space and facilities.
Ms Prince said: "Patients are required to sit on free- standing chairs and practitioners must balance patients' feet on their own knees." None are said to comply with infection control requirements.
When the users were consulted last summer more than 100 of the 130 patients answered a questionnaire. Of those 79 per cent said they would be willing to attend a more modern clinic.
The trust now plans to move the clinics over the next six months to Harrogate District Hospital, Ripon Community Hospital, Knaresborough Fysche Hall Clinic, Jennyfields Health Centre and some GP surgeries.
Podiatry services manager Lynda Parkinson said: "Some patients may need support with transport to the clinics and a core of patients may need to be seen in their own homes."
08 May 2006
When I was a health service manager my first major job was to close 23 rural podiatry clinics on health and safety grounds. I thought the world would come to an end. Diversely positioned throughout the lanes of East Sussex the only funding available was for a mobile podiatry clinic shared withb a sister authority. By some miracle it worked and although was only poroposed to be a temporary measure continued for another quarter of a century. There is even mention in Hansard, ah, the fame. To be honest the comments were rather scathing and went something like. " the last time there was an innovation in care in the region was when a mobile clinic was introduced, and that was inadequate."
Politicians never quite grasp the real problems of life.
I do vividly recall wonderful country pubs and village greens as well as an endless stream of happy customers. Whatever happened to the day of yore?
An adjacent PCT to mine has resumed this practice of using Village Halls.
WHY OH WHY is this acceptable to not only ask ones staff to work insuch environmemnts but that it is also ask pts to receive health care in such an environment.
My primary concern is for the NHS employees.
Would other disciplines eg Physio OT Dietetics accept this scenario.
Or is it only Sherroppoddy that is considered sufficiently beneath the salt to be expected to work in such UNACEPTABLE SURROUNDINGS.
My PCT no longer uses Mobile Units so provides its treatments within Community Hospitals and Clinics and GP Surgeries. Domiciliary is provided in specific circumstances ONLY as we now have access to Hospital transport .
When I started in the district I took my camera to the village clinics and photographed lesions and surrounding environment. Then I went to the Community Health Council (a watchdog in the old days) and presented the argument if they wanted care then they would have to be prepared to support better facilities. It worked then and that was pre blood borne virus days etc. My colleague Steve Kennedy (I think he subscribes) did a project on backache in allied health and found pods had a 100% occupationally related backache and had lost more days at work than any other staff in a hospital community. Employer's duty of care would be a way to proceed as working in cramped conditions wopuld not oggle well for health of an employee.
i heard today that the village hall i spoke about is about to or has closed as the New rural community health clinic is about to or has just opened and Podiatry services have now started there.
So the dismal wooden grotty village hall is now no more.
This will be a major improvement for podiatry services in that rural area.
>This will be a major improvement for podiatry services in that rural area.
For that we must be grateful. OH & S is a an important tool which seems to move employers to take responsible actions.
A thousand years ago I worked a 500 year old village hall in Radley Oxford which was attached to the vickerage. The clients were never in short supply and the only place for escape was the loo. These old buildings are full of secrets and whilst taking a well earned nature break from a heavy clinical load, I was perched on the throne contemplating my navel when in popped the vicker though his secret panel door from the vickerage.
There has no doubt about the significance of OH&S concerns in the workplace in recent years and major improvements have been put in place. HOWEVER, a few recent news stories in our state here have got me wondering....
There have been a lot of workplace deaths lately (eg in construction industry), despite the government and union initiated safety and OH&S training and strategies. Has the recent push for workplace OH&S really led to a reduction in workplace injury?
ie in the example of this thread, has changes in work environment to a "best practice" (which I strongly agree with) really led to, for eg, less occupational overuse in Podiatrists (which is high anyway) or less cross-infection in patients????
__________________
Craig Payne
Department of Podiatry
La Trobe University
Melbourne, Australia http://www.latrobe.edu.au/podiatry
__________________________________________________ ___________________________________ God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things - right now I am so far behind, I will never die.
The views expressed above are those of the author and not that of La Trobe University This is where I am, where are you?
More on this story from Harrogate Today: Villages to lose their clinics in health shake-up
Quote:
PATIENTS who regularly attend village hall foot clinics may have to relocate to fully-equipped town centres over the next six months.
The clinics, provided in seven village halls across the district, have been in operation for more than 25 years and have proved very popular with small, rural communities.
But the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust say the locations, do not meet professional or health and safety standards, making them unfit for a clinical service.
They say the privacy and dignity of patients is compromised through the lack of space and facilities while the lack of appropriate equipment means patients are required to balance their feet on the therapist’s knees.
The clinics are at Beckwithshaw Village Hall, Dishforth Village Hall, Huby Village Hall, Kirkby Malzeard Chapel School, Lofthouse Village Hall, Melmerby Village Hall and Spofforth Institute.
A spokesperson at the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust said: “The environment in which the clinics are provided is not suitable for the therapist to deliver their treatment. There is a health and safety risk and some concern about cleanliness while many premises do not have disabled access. There is a whole host of reasons to close the service.”
The patients were consulted last summer about the plans and 100 of the 130 patients responded to the questionnaire. Of those, 79% of respondents said that they would be willing to attend a more modern clinic and of those who were not 6% said they would consider moving if transport was provided.
Now, following the consultation, the Trust has made recommendations to move the service to centralised centres in Harrogate District Hospital, Ripon Community Hospital, Knaresborough Fysche Hall Clinic, Jennyfields Health Centre and existing GP surgeries.
Lynda Parkinson, Podiatry Services Manager, said: “It is intended to assess patients individually regarding future treatment and offer clinic options but some patients may need support with transport to the clinics, and a core of patients may need to be seen in their own homes.”
OH & S concerns spell end for foot clinics
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