Welcome to your latest members’ newsletter
Happy New Year and welcome to 2025! It has been a challenging start to the year for the NHS, and it has been no different for Frimley Health.
As I said in the last newsletter, we expect our services to come under additional pressure at this time of year. I am grateful to our staff who go above and beyond to see our patients and keep them safe, but that doesn’t make it any easier for patients who have to wait longer than we would like for urgent care.
A number of extra initiatives are making a difference this winter. For example, we have expanded our same day emergency care in different specialties so more people can be assessed and treated without needing to be admitted to a bed. Urgent care centres at Bracknell, Slough and Frimley now offer great care for patients who aren’t in immediate danger. And where possible hospital teams are providing urgent care in more people’s homes.
It has been an eventful few weeks in many other ways, as you will read in this newsletter. It was great to see so many of you join us for our first Health Event of the year - the insights from our experts on stroke care were fascinating and it was great to hear about the excellent work our teams are doing to support patients. We are working on our new Trust strategy outlining how we’ll meet our healthcare challenges until 2030. We have scheduled a special Health Event in February to tell you more about it. We have also published the draft strategy with a feedback form on our website, and we would love for you to read it and give us your feedback, so that we can incorporate as much of what matters to you as we can in the final version.
The New Hospital Programme was also in the news again, with Government confirming its commitment to funding a new Frimley Park as part of the first wave of hospitals. We’ll be doing all we can to complete this as soon as possible, and we expect to announce our preferred site for the hospital in the spring.
2025 is already shaping up to be another exciting and challenging year and the support of our members and communities will be more important than ever.
Best wishes
Bryan
Bryan Ingleby
Chair
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
New Frimley Park Hospital update
This month the Secretary of State announced the outcome of the review which re-confirmed the prioritisation of the seven RAAC schemes due to safety risks, including Frimley Park Hospital, and they are all in wave one of the programme. For the new Frimley Park Hospital, a cost estimate of between £1.5 billion and £2 billion has been announced, which aligns with all the work we have undertaken to date.
In terms of an expected construction date, this has been listed as 2028 to 2029. However, this is an unexpected, later construction start date than we have been working towards with our national NHP colleagues. We will therefore work with our national NHP colleagues to understand why this later date has been published and will continue to drive towards the earliest possible date for construction and completion of a new Frimley Park Hospital, in conjunction with the Frimley Integrated Care Board, NHS England South-East and our NHP colleagues.
The key next step is making a decision about the preferred site for the new hospital. We are on track with our plan for this decision to be made in spring 2025. As soon as the decision has been made and can be announced we will communicate this widely.
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Health Event news
Health event puts stroke care in spotlight
The first members’ event of the year was a success with nearly 200 people attending to see consultant stroke physician Dr Tilly Speirs, and stroke nurse consultant Ailsa Hutchings give such an informative presentation on the ‘FASTer management of stroke’.
The event covered everything from the common signs and symptoms of stroke, to the latest procedures aimed at diagnosing and treating patients as quickly as possible. If you didn’t manage to attend the event, you can see a recording here.
Frimley Health 2030 – A one off health event
Join us for a special health event in February, where we will share our ambitious new strategy aimed at transforming healthcare delivery over the next five years and providing the right care, in the right place, at the right time for our communities.
The strategy, called Frimley Health 2030, has a strong focus on patient-centred care developed through extensive input from staff, patients, and partners. In response to challenges like long waiting lists and staff shortages, we are investing in new facilities, including the state-of-the-art Frimley Park Hospital, and using the latest digital technologies to improve the way we work.
Frimley Health 2030 also prioritises sustainability, community engagement, and creating a supportive work environment for our staff. If you would like to find out more about the future direction of Frimley Health, please join us for this one-off event on Tuesday 12 February 6.30pm-7.30pm. You can register here.
Change your access to healthcare with MyFrimleyHealth Record
The next scheduled health event will be on Tuesday 11 March 6.30 – 7.30 pm, with one of our familiar faces, Dr Gareth Roberts, telling us all about the benefits of signing up to MyFrimleyHealth Record. Dr Roberts is our chief of service for transformation and a respiratory doctor who has led several events in the past about COPD.
This time he’ll be presenting on the MyFrimleyHealth Record app, an online platform which provides patients with personalised and secure online access to their medical records. You can see how to view details of current appointments and book follow ups, attend online consultations, view medications and test results, and safely send messages to your doctor and care teams. Register here to attend the event.
Video appointments via MyFrimleyHealth Record
One of the many benefits of MyFrimleyHealth Record which Dr Gareth Roberts will talk about at the March event is the ability to have a video call with a hospital doctor. The app’s patient portal enables you to attend virtual appointments wherever you can get online, whether you are at home or out and about.
Video consultations can be a convenient alternative to face-to-face appointments and help you to avoid unnecessary journeys to hospital. Ask your clinician if you would like a video appointment. They will tell you if it would be appropriate for your care.
MyFrimleyHealth Record should not be confused with the NHS app. Both are valuable, but MyFrimleyHealth Record is specifically tailored to a patient’s care at our Trust and offers features and insights unique to our services. Read more here.
Thousands raised in charity Christmas appeal
The Frimley Health Charity team would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported December’s Golden Christmas Appeal. There was an incredible £75,000 raised thanks to the generous donations from people in the community and local businesses.
The funds provided gifts on Christmas morning for the 1700 patients staying in our hospitals, free meals for staff working during the festive period and hampers filled with goodies for different departments across the Trust. No one wants to be in hospital on Christmas Day, but for those who were there were some little golden touches thanks to the generosity of the public and the hard work of the Frimley Health Charity team.
The race is on for Run Frimley 2025
Frimley Health Charity’s biggest fundraising event of the year, Run Frimley, is back for 2025 and will take place on Sunday 4 May at Frimley Green. The event, which has always attracted a strong community following, includes closed road 5K and 10K races and a one-mile colour fun run for all the family to participate in.
More than 1,200 ‘runners’ of all ages and abilities took part in last year’s event, with an amazing atmosphere in the on-site event village before and after the races. Why not pop down with the family and support your local hospital. Sign up today on the Frimley Health Charity website.
Research project aims to break down barriers
Our research and innovation team has launched a project aimed at making it easier for people with neuroimmunological conditions to take part in important trials. The CONSENTOR study will enable patients with conditions, such as multiple sclerosis (MS), neuromyelitis optica and others, to participate in research.
Patients with these conditions are often keen to contribute data, such as blood tests and MRI scans, to researchers working on possible treatments. Yet collecting this information has been made difficult due to the time involved entering it into separate research projects, each requiring a new consent form.
To change this, the CONSENTOR (Combined One-off Neuroimmunological conditions Study and trial Eligibility Notification Tool and Observational Research) project is trialling a different approach. A single unified form allows different levels of consenting, depending on how much information people are comfortable sharing. The project could increase the number of people contributing.
For further information, see here.