We work on behalf of patients and the public to deliver excellent health care services in Merton and the whole of South West London. We’re trying to link local services together more effectively across health and social care in Merton, putting you at the centre of your care.
We’re working with local GP practices, partners and providers in Merton to implement what is known as the Whole Merton vision. As part of this, we’re developing a model for out of hospital care in Merton, which aims to integrate and join up services around people’s needs.
The plan aims to deliver improvements in four priority areas:
- Give every child a healthy start
- Support people to improve their health and wellbeing
- Enable people to manage their own health and wellbeing as independently as possible
- Improve wellbeing, resilience and connectedness
As part of this, we’re developing a model for out of hospital care in Merton, which aims to integrate and join up services around people’s needs. We’re working with a range of partners across the wider health and social care system, including Merton Council – a key strategic partner – local voluntary organisations and other NHS bodies, to do this and develop appropriate joint commissioning and system leadership arrangements.
The plan was published in 2015 by NHS Merton CCG, before it merged with the other five south west London borough commissioners to form NHS South West London CCG on 1 April 2020.
Health and care organisations in Merton are working more closely together to make services better connected and more joined up through a programme called Merton Health and Care Together.
The NHS, Council, voluntary sector and Healthwatch have come together to look at what’s important for health and care in Merton, what the challenges are and how, if different organisations work more closely together, we can make a difference.
Our aspiration for the people of Merton is that they start well, live well and age well.
NHS Surrey Downs, Sutton and Merton are working together to make sure local people have the best quality health services for generations to come, in modern, safe buildings with the majority of services provided on both hospital sites and in the community, close to people’s homes.
We’re looking to address the significant challenges at Epsom and St Helier hospitals around clinical standards, finances and estates. Many of the buildings were built before the NHS existed and are not fit for purpose. Epsom and St Helier is the only Trust in south west London that cannot meet set clinical standards and it has a growing financial deficit, which means the Trust cannot take the necessary action to address the other challenges.
The NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector in south west London have strengthened their commitment to working together to deliver better care for local people as the South West London Health and Care Partnership.
A local approach works best, and organisations providing health and care in six London boroughs have come together as local partnerships, acting as one team to keep people healthy and well in Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth.
Each year we set out our priorities for the coming year and describe how we will improve the health of the communities we serve. As some of these priorities may lead to changes or developments that affect how some health providers need to work, we give providers six months’ notice of any changes.
The Learning Disability Mortality Review (LeDeR) Programme is delivered by the University of Bristol. It is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) on behalf of NHS England. Work on the LeDeR programme commenced in June 2015 for an initial three year period.
A key part of the LeDeR programme is to support local areas to review the deaths of people with Learning Disabilities (deaths include from age 4 and above) , helping to promote and implement the new review process, and providing support to local areas to take forward the lessons learned in the reviews in order to make improvements to service provision. The LeDeR Programme also collate and share anonymised information about the deaths of people with learning disabilities so that common themes, learning points and recommendations can be identified and taken forward into policy and practice improvements.
Merton Health & Care Estates Strategy
Merton’s Health and Care Estates strategy has been developed to support our local teams to meet future health needs in the borough. The strategy has been drawn up to maximise opportunities for improvement in our health and care services as people are living longer with complex long-term conditions.
As part of the strategy development, two workshops were held to discuss key priorities, and how best to address the health needs of our local population from an estates point of view. We engaged with Merton’s voluntary services sector and council run services at the Merton Health and Care Together Board meetings.
Colleagues and partners from community health care, local authority, voluntary sector, primary care, mental health and two major Acute hospital trusts joined our workshops and borough estates meetings.
We are planning to develop a new health and wellbeing hub to serve the people of Mitcham and the surrounding areas. It will be home to a range of difference services, but also connect people by signposting them to other sources of support across Merton.
We want to deliver care in a different way for local residents. We know people in the East of Merton, in areas like Mitcham and Morden, experience unacceptable health inequalities compared to other parts of the boroughs.
The Programme Board has now been re-established and will meet monthly.
Merton Health and Care Plan draft 2022-24
Health, care and community organisations in Merton have refreshed the borough’s health and care plan for 2022-24.