Issue - meetings

This paper has been prepared to ensure that the B&NES Health and Wellbeing Select Committee are kept up-to-date with the planned relocation of the Royal United Hospital’s (RUH) Sexual Health Clinic, along with clinicians and support staff, from the RUH’s Combe Park site, to shared premises at the Bath Riverside Health Centre.

The Associate Director for Integration, RUH introduced this report to the Select Committee. She explained the planned relocation of the Royal United Hospital’s (RUH) Sexual Health Clinic, along with clinicians and support staff, from the RUH’s Combe Park site, to shared premises at the Bath Riverside Health Centre. She stated that the Trust is planning to relocate the Clinic at the end of 2016, to share ground floor premises with the Contraception and Sexual Health (CaSH) services currently provided by Sirona.

She added that other services currently located at the Centre include Bath and North East Somerset Enhanced Medical Service (BEMS) and Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP).

She said there would be no change in the level of service provision for patients of the Sexual Health Clinic and that the RUH will continue to provide the same range of services at the Riverside Health Centre and patients will continue to be seen and treated by the same team to the same high standards.

She informed the Select Committee that a focussed clinical and patient and public engagement on the planned relocation of the service from the RUH Combe Park site, to the Riverside Health Centre, ran from 18th April to 27^th June, a period of ten weeks, asking people to share their thoughts on the plans to relocate, including any benefits, concerns or anything additional people felt needed to be considered ahead of moving.

She said that the majority of respondents were positive about the plan to relocate the service, identifying easier travel and access including better public transport links, central location and co-location with CaSH as amongst the benefits of moving to the Riverside.

She explained that the HIV Clinic will continue to run on the same morning as a separate clinic, so patients will share the dedicated waiting area only with other HIV patients during this time and not with other Sexual Health patients. She added that there would be a separate reception desk and waiting room for patients attending the Sexual Health Clinic.

She said that subject to the Select Committee’s endorsement of the plan to relocate the Sexual Health Clinic to the Riverside Health Centre in Bath, the intention is to relocate the Clinic on World AIDS Day, December 1^st 2016.

Councillor Paul May said that this was a prime example of working with the community.

Councillor Eleanor Jackson commended the excellent work of the project.

The Select Committee RESOLVED to:

·  Note the outcome of the impact assessments and patient and public engagement activities which provided opportunities for patients, staff, stakeholders and the public to provide feedback on the planned move, and which confirmed that the effects of this change are considered minimal and that there are a number of positive aspects to the change, for current and future patients and for the wider healthcare community.

·  Endorse the proposal to relocate the Sexual Health Clinic from the RUH’s Combe Down site to the Riverside Health Centre in Bath.