During 2011 Central & North West London Foundation Trust moved its headquarters from Mornington Crescent to a building near Warren Street Underground Station. This serves as the hub from which over 3,000 staff are controlled. Originally the Trust provided only mental health services but it did so for a large swathe of North West and Central London, including Hillingdon and Harrow. It provides inpatient services on the Hillingdon Hospital site. In 2010 it branched out into provision of community health services. responding to the NHS requirement that Primary Care Trusts must no longer both commission and provide services. Hillingdon Community Health amalgamated with CNWL in early 2011 and subsequently CNWL also became responsible for community health services in Camden.
This page will contain items related to CNWL Board meetings and mental health services. Items related to Hillingdon's NHS community services will be shown on our Community Health Services page.
- Phone number for crisis support:
Care planning:
- This aims to involve service users in planning their care and to improve the number who have a written care plan.
Dr James Warner
Dr James Warner, Clinical Director for Healthy Ageing, Central & North West London FT made a big impression on his audience at this meeting.
He was immensely informative but very informal. Those who heard him will not forget his talk. These notes try to capture the main points of his address
a. Dementia caused Dr Warner’s own father to decline to a shadow of his former self. It can afflict anyone. Everyone experiences mild memory loss as years advance - that is normal ageing. However, dementia is more than memory loss, involving difficulties with language and recognition of faces, difficulty with problem solving, planning and organisation, as well as changes in behaviour, emotions, personality and interests.
b. An early sign is impaired recall of recent events, such as what happened yesterday. Memory loss increases until even close family members are not recognised. Development may be slow over months or years. Typically functions such as ability to dress and feed oneself are gradually lost and incontinence develops.
c. Worldwide, dementia is a huge problem. Today ¾ million people suffer from it in UK and this is expected to rise to over a million by 2020, afflicting one in five people aged over 80 years. Of those who live to 65 years, one third will die with dementia. Dementia is now becoming a problem for developing countries too.
The Community Voice, of which we are a member, tries to be represented at all the CNWL Board meetings held in public. However, it would be good to see more people sitting in the public gallery listening to the proceedings and asking questions - the Chairman usually allows this at the end of meetings held in public.
Meetings take place at 9am at the Trust's new headquarters, Stevenson House, 75 Hampstead Road NW1.· The nearest Underground Station is Warren Street Station.· Any member of the public is free to attend.
Future meetings in 2012 will take place on 14th March, 16th May, 11th July, 12th September and 14th November.
This meeting, on 11th May 2011, was the Trust’s second Board Meeting in public. The Trust covers a very wide area, so large parts of the meeting were not of direct relevance to Hillingdon residents.
Finances
At 31st March finances were on budget as planned
Staff Survey
The results were considered disappointing. Main concerns were staff training and hand washing – similar findings to a year ago. The Chief Executive, Claire Murdoch, wants immediate improvements and explanations for why these problems persist.
Concern was also raised about the number of nursing post vacancies, but assurances were given that no compromise on staff quality will be made in filling these positions.
Mystery Shopper Feedback
Only “Out of Hours Services” and “Reception Areas” were involved in these exercises but Hillingdon services were not well represented, possibly because the mystery shoppers did not want to travel so far. Without a breakdown into areas, it is difficult to know whether the exercise has any local relevance, particularly as the shoppers reported wide variance in experiences, ranging from very positive to very disappointed. Also on duplicate visits they noted that experiences differed due to the individuals encountered.
