This engagement is an opportunity to talk about ways services could be organised so that you can get the very best urgent advice, support and care across the county and benefit from two thriving specialist hospitals in the future in Cheltenham and Gloucester.

Engagement Documents

Engagement Hearing

Intro and written submission from Suicide Crisis
Cllr Richard Stanley, Tewkesbury Borough Council
Cllr Flo Clucas, Cheltenham Borough Council
Prof Robert Arnott, Cheltenham Labour Party
Tony Foster, Cheltenham Resident
REACH
Friends of Lydney Hospital

Output of Engagement

This engagement was an opportunity to talk about ways services could be organised so that you can get the very best urgent advice, support and care across the county and benefit from two thriving specialist hospitals in the future in Cheltenham and Gloucester.

Citizens’ Jury

A citizens’ jury looked at how specialist hospital services in Gloucestershire could develop in the future at Cheltenham Chase Hotel, Shurdington Road, Brockworth GL3 4PB from 09.30 to 17.00 on Monday 20 January 2020 through to Friday 24 January 2020.

It was open to the general public, who were able to attend and watch, but not contribute. Places were allocated on a first come, first served basis.

Following a period of advertising, 18 people were selected for the jury and are broadly representative of the people of Gloucestershire in relation to age, gender, education, ethnicity and postcode.  You can find out more about what the jury considered here as well as a summary agenda for the week. The presentation slides were uploaded by 1pm each day, you can view them all on this page.

The independent Citizens’ Jury considered feedback from the Fit for the Future public and staff engagement, together with evidence on the need for change across Gloucestershire’s two main hospital sites – Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal.They considered staff and public feedback including survey findings, outputs from events, service workshops and the engagement hearing.

They also heard evidence from expert witnesses on the need for change, access to services and best clinical practice.

After careful assessment of the information, Jurors made recommendations about their priorities for three specialist services and gave their views on the centres of excellence approach. The Report can be found here.

The potential solutions will be narrowed down during an appraisal exercise in public and will then be subject to further review.

Solutions Appraisal

The Fit for the Future (FFTF) Programme has established an evidence-based, transparent and inclusive solutions appraisal process that meets statutory and assurance requirements, and has enabled a broad range of participants to help to shape our emerging solutions. Building on our recent engagement activity, the solutions appraisal process was designed to enable the programme to sift through a very large number of possible options, the Long List, through a smaller number of viable options, the Medium List, to allow detailed analysis and modelling of a Short List to determine the Preferred Option or options that it takes out to consultation.

Solutions Appraisal Workshop

Following input from the Citizens Jury at the end of January, 2020 a Solutions Appraisal Workshop was held to debate, discuss and assess the working ideas (Medium List) against a set of evaluation criteria, developed through recent engagement work. and agree what score the group will give to each of the solutions and models. Workshop participants included healthcare professionals from across the One Gloucestershire system, patient representatives and members of the Citizens’ Jury.

The scoring process established a hierarchy of potential solutions (the Short List) and the rationale for them. This will allow further detailed analysis to be undertaken to provide information that will enable decision-makers to consider an options that will be taken forward to public consultation. Any proposals for change are required to undergo a period of formal public consultation, after which due regard is given to the feedback received from the public, staff and other interested parties.

Information provided at the workshop is available here:

Due to COVID-19, the outcome from the Solutions Appraisal Workshop has not been fully considered. The development of the Pre-consultation Business Case is currently on hold. Further information will be published here in due course.

Watch: Fit for the Future – Introduction

Patient Stories

Fact Sheets

These fact sheets have been created this year (August 2019) to provide more detailed information to support the Fit for the Future engagement.