It's vital for people in the North East to have their say about their experience of health and care while living with a range of chronic health conditions, says a top professor.
Professor Anthony De Soyza of the Newcastle University Population Health Sciences Institute has encouraged people living here to help design the future of NHS services by responding to a "call for evidence" from the Department of Health and Social Care seeking to understand "how best to prevent, diagnose, treat and manage" six devastating conditions.
Chosen as a focus because they often occur in combinations, the six are: cancers; cardiovascular disease including stroke and diabetes; chronic respiratory diseases; dementia; mental ill health; and musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis. Prof De Soyza said that, given poorer population health outcomes in our region and the vast geographical area in which we live, it was especially important for people to respond.
The professor told ChronicleLive: "Society is changing and we are recognising that we have to manage health and illnesses in a totally different way. We have moved from a model where people would just be seen to have one illness, to a much greater understanding that people may have multiple morbidities - more than one long-term condition.
"As we get older we collect these conditions like badges of honour. As a result, how healthcare is developed and how we do research has to adapt. We know there are some long-term conditions that are going to be great societal challenges."
He explained that it was especially important for people in the North East to take part. Prof De Soyza said: "There are two reasons. The first is in terms of our patient population. The research being carried out here outstrips many parts of the country. The North East punches above our weight. There are people already engaged in the work we are doing and now we want them to help inform how things work.
"The other thing of course is we do have higher rates of deprivation and that does link strongly with population health. We have lower income per capita, and a consequence is we have more people on long-term sick and more people tend to have diseases that go together with low income."
The Newcastle University figure - who is a professor of pulmonary medicine and works at the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust - added that this was a opportunity for the public to help shape how NHS and care services work. Focuses are on how well services for different conditions work together and if how appointments work can be redesigned to make life easier for patients.
"The key thing is that the health and social care system now wants people to be more involved," Prof De Soyza added. "There's an online survey for people to feed into. We we want is to hear is groups of people engaging with this and telling us what they think, where they have problems. This is the opportunity to have a greater voice in how things are designed.
"Patients can tell us things like 'what really annoys me is when I turn up and see someone for one condition but then can't get help with another thing.' The hope is it can help as we move to a more and more integrated system."
The strategy will "seek to reduce care and treatment that are too narrowly focused on specific diseases or organs in the body and consider how to treat people as a whole".
Health and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay, said: "Patients often live with more than one major condition, so it’s vital that we do all we can to understand how best to manage their care.
"I encourage patients, carers and healthcare professionals to contribute to our call for evidence so we can ensure our major conditions strategy is as targeted and patient-focused as possible."
Find out more about the Call for Evidence for the Government's new Major Conditions Strategy here.
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