Our performance

Some of the achievements of NHS Medway during 2010/11, working with its partners, include...

• A Better Medway, a wide-reaching campaign to encourage people living
  and working in Medway to make changes to improve their physical and
  mental health
• improved care for people suffering the most serious type of heart attack,
  provided by a new award-winning primary angioplasty service at William
  Harvey Hospital in Ashford working in close co-ordination with South East
  Coast Ambulance Service
• continued improvement in infection control, with just two cases of a
  bloodstream MRSA (meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection
  in Medway patients, compared to eight last year
• sustained improvements to care for people having a stroke, with 94 per
  cent having a brain scan within 24 hours
• the launch of Live It Well, Kent and Medway’s mental health commissioning
  strategy for 2010-15, developed with extensive input from people who use
  services, carers, and health and social care professionals, which now
  underpins local commissioning of mental health services
• being the only PCT in the country where every GP practice offers patients
  aged 40-74 an NHS Health Check every five years, to assess their
  individual risk of developing heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, kidney disease
  and stroke
• the establishment of a Delivering Health Together in Medway programme,
  with the other key organisations in health and social care in Medway, to
  ensure a successful whole-system approach to strategic change and create
  a slimmer, more effective NHS
• being considered in the top third of PCTs in the country for World Class
  Commissioning
• the launch of a lung cancer awareness and early diagnosis initiative, to
  help more people recognise the symptoms of lung cancer and seek help
  from their GP
• much greater involvement by the public and by health and social care
  professionals in shaping services and much better communication with the
  public and health professionals
• the opening of our new healthy living centre at Balmoral Gardens in
  Gillingham
• sustaining a strong financial position, including delivering our year-end
  target for 2010/11 of staying within budget, at a time of intense pressure on
  the NHS
• successful completion of the NHS Carbon Management Programme and the
  development of a five year plan to reduce our carbon emissions which is
  being used as an exemplar by the Carbon Trust.

In addition, in 2010/11 we, with the three practice-based commissioning locality
groups in Medway, spent a significant amount of time developing the commissioning
skills of GPs and practices, in readiness for clinical commissioning which is at the
heart of the government's reforms of the NHS and is subject to parliamentary
approval.