Please help keep B&H equipement service

Although someone else had a thread about the B&H Integrated Community Equipment Service (ICES), I'd like to add my view as a user of the service, and ask the good of NSC to help by signing the petition. My son regularly receives equipment from ICES and they always provide an excellent, adaptable and friendly service. When you call , they know about your order, give you up to date information and a delivery slot. It is often the case that services such as these are outsourced and you lose that customer-orientated approach. I spend a great deal of time negotiating the various services, teams, hospitals trying to chase up referrals, find out information etc. In-house services such as ICES are essential as thay are not part of a bigger corporate machine where personal service is forgotten. Although many of you won't have needed their services yet, most of you (that live here) will at some point as they help so many people (elderly as well as disabled) across Brighton and Hove.

If this is something you don't mind supporting, please sign this petition:
http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/equipmentservice

Thanks


Further information if you'd like to know more:

ICES provides daily living equipment and adaptations to support people living in their own homes (within Brighton and Hove), following assessment by a suitably qualified prescriber (e.g. Nurse, OT, Physio). ICES is jointly commissioned by the Clinical Commissioning Group and local authority. The service is provided and run by the local Community NHS Trust with staffing comprising of NHS and local authority employees. The service itself receives referrals from local health trusts and social services staff, and prescribers from children’s services.

This service is vital to support childrens and adults who need equipment to increase or maintain independence and in some cases achieve a quality of life. At present the service sits within the public sector and has established relationships with local services, prescribers and service users. Having an in-house service has greater benefits than outsourcing to a private company, where flexibility and personal service are lost through the bureaucracy of contracts. Within the present arrangment prescribers can contact ICES directly, carry out joint visits with technicians, meaning greater flexibility, emergency response (particularly for facilitating hospital discharges, or providing equipment such as a hospital bed for end of life care) which ultimately means better outcomes for service users. Being in house faciltates this and enables a local service to be provided by local staff to local residents.

Done Triggaaar. Best of luck with it.

Thank you

Done, good luck

nomoremithras4me said:

Done, good luck

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Thank you.

I can't believe there's not more support for this on here. If I was trying to rig a vote for my dog to be crowned mutt of the year, NSC would trounce all opposition. It looks like we're all going to lose a really good service.

Done!

Triggaaar said:

Thank you.

I can't believe there's not more support for this on here. If I was trying to rig a vote for my dog to be crowned mutt of the year, NSC would trounce all opposition. It looks like we're all going to lose a really good service.

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Can't speak for anyone else, but if it was something meaningless like the dog thing, then I'd do it without thinking, but this actually has validity in real-life, and I would have to have a considered opinion before I could put my mark to it. Some of the medical services I get are contracted out and every bit as good as the in-house NHS ones, like the delivery of my injections - never a problem, they'll deliver to wherever I want, and call me every month regarding status and delivery times etc.- no problems, so without having experience of this particular one, it's difficult to comment.

Signed it. Hope the petition makes a difference.

The main reason for outsourcing in this way is normally to reduce costs. Typically, unless the in-house service is grossly inefficient, and this one by all accounts is not, the main way of reducing costs in such services is by reducing, over time, the wages, terms and conditions of staff. Eventually you end up with less-committed staff, higher staff turnover and a worse service for the end user. It's usually made worse by the fact that the contracting authority still ends up having to have an extra tier of (relatively highly-paid people) managing the contract, checking on supplier performance etc. The costs of this extra tier will then be met by further downward pressure on the price paid for the service, with predictable results.

Tricky Dicky said:

Can't speak for anyone else, but if it was something meaningless like the dog thing, then I'd do it without thinking, but this actually has validity in real-life, and I would have to have a considered opinion before I could put my mark to it.

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You're quite right, I don't think people should just sign any old petition without thinking about what it means.

Some of the medical services I get are contracted out and every bit as good as the in-house NHS ones, like the delivery of my injections - never a problem, they'll deliver to wherever I want, and call me every month regarding status and delivery times etc.- no problems, so without having experience of this particular one, it's difficult to comment.

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Yep, unfortunately a lot of people won't have had to rely on the service yet, and those that have don't know what they've got 'til they lose it. One of the main advantages of the service we have now, is how well the team communicates with the other NHS staff (physios and OTs etc) so stuff gets done quickly, instead of being lost is a sea of red tape.