šØ Have you used healthcare services for South Woodham Ferrers, Dengie and Maldon patients? If so, we want to hear from you about your experience accessing these services.
Weāre collecting your experiences in a new survey with the University of Warwick to inform the local NHS and other authorities.
š Please take this anonymous survey to speak up:
š https://warwick.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2mY0OwsBK4fDLam
š Average time of 20 minutes to complete
š Closes: 5th May (Bank Holiday Monday)
šFor residents of the Maldon, Dengie and South Woodham Ferrers area aged 18+
š¢ Your participation will be anonymous
š¢ Your voice matters
#HealthcareServices #Maldon #Dengie #SWF #NHSAccess #UniversityofWarwick #EssexNHS
The Working Group has submitted its Recommendations for Community Hospital Services to NHS Mid and South Essex. The review focused particularly on service provision at St Peterās Hospital in Maldon and other community hospitals including the Cumberlege Intermediate Care Centre in South East Essex and Brentwood Community Hospital.
The working groupās important recommendations are:
St Peterās Hospital, Maldon: Investment to keep the facility operational for approximately five years while capital funding is assembled for a purpose-built new facility, ideally on a portion of the current site. This new facility would house outpatient services and create vital new primary care space for local GP services.
Inpatient Care: Acknowledgment that the NHS cannot efficiently operate an inpatient unit in Maldon due to low utilisation (maximum of two stroke beds needed for Maldon residents at any given time).
Stroke Services: Implementation of āOption Bā featuring a āsplit bedā approach, ensuring Southend residents who require specialist stroke inpatient rehabilitation can remain local, reducing travel burden on visiting families.
Birthing Services: preserving the approximately 14,000 pre and post-natal appointments that currently take place at St Peterās Hospital, Maldon each year while maintaining midwife led births at the William Julien Courtauld birthing centre at Braintree Community Hospital.
Next steps
The recommendations will be presented at the ICB Board meeting in May and incorporated into a Decision Making Business Case for consideration by the NHS Mid and South Essex ICB Board during the summer months, with the aim of making a well-informed decision.
Winter illnesses have peaked. In week 15:
- influenza (flu) activity decreased across most indicators and was at low activity levels
- COVID-19 activity showed a mixed picture across indicators and was circulating at baseline levels
- respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity showed a mixed picture across indicators and was circulating at baseline levels
Norovirus activity has remained high but has stabilised in the most recent weeks. The total number of norovirus laboratory reports between weeks 10 and 13 of 2025 was more than double (149.3%) the 5-season average for the same 4-week period. Most healthy people recover from Norovirus in a few days, but vulnerable people and young children may get serious problems. It spreads easily; just a few viral particles can infect someone, including by close contact with someone with the virus, or eating food prepared by someone with it. It also sticks on surfaces. You can catch Norovirus twice.
If you have Norovirus
- Stay home; donāt return to work or school until two days after the vomiting and diarrhoea have stopped
- Drink plenty
- Wash hands regularly with soap and water; disinfectants donāt work well against the virus; nor do alcohol hand gels
- If youāre concerned – eg if a child canāt keep fluids down or the illness doesnāt stop after a few days – seek medical advice.
NHS England is being abolished. It will be brought into the Department of Health. This is to free up more money for frontline services. Itās expected to take around two years. 50% of the 14,400 NHS England staff and the 3,500 Department of Health staff go. This move gives government more control and accountability for the promised service improvements.
Amongst other reflections, in her last message as chief executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard recalled:
- taking receipt of the George Cross from Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on behalf of the entire NHS workforce.
- that hundreds of NHS and care workers died from the virus ā and we should never forget them.
- that the NHS rises to any challenges put to it and has a lot to be proud of.
- thousands now get hospital style care at home through virtual wards.
- half of schools in England now have mental health support teams in place.
- the NHS App has been revolutionised so people can get advice and appointments at the touch of a button.
- the 10 Year Health Plan is a huge opportunity for the NHS.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Amanda Pritchard and all the NHS workers since 2019. They deserve that George Cross; we should never forget them.
Later this year, Amanda Pritchard becomes the Chief Executive of Guyās and St Thomasā NHS Foundation Trust.
The Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in England have been instructed to reduce their budgets by 50% and will be rearranged to cover larger areas and populations. Mid & South Essex Integrated Care Board will have to lose many staff to achieve this and must do so by October. It is likely āourā ICS will cover at least the whole of the geographical county of Essex. Inevitably this part of the radical development of the NHS over the 10 year plan period will, as always with organisational reviews, interfere in the short term with the work ICSs do. However, it has to be hoped that a streamlined NHS will be more efficient. It is good that local community operations undertaken by Primary Care Networks and Integrated Neighbourhood Teams seem to be unaffected. They have been invaluable in improving performance in our local areas of SWF, the Dengie and Maldon Central.
The English GPs āstrikeā has been settled. During the next yearpatients will get to book more appointments online and request to see their usual doctor. Red tape and targets will reduce, freeing doctors to see more patients.
English Community pharmacies are considering starting to work to rule unless a new NHS contract is agreed. Action could involve reducing opening hours and cutting services. Pharmacies have a vital role as the NHS shifts away from hospitals and back to the community; we need them more than ever.
GPs are inviting eligible people to book spring Covid-19 vaccinations. The NHS national booking system https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/vaccination-and-booking-services/book-covid-19-vaccination/ is open to 7.5 million eligible people, including everyone aged 75 years and over, residents in care homes for older adults, and people with a weakened immune system. UKHSAās latest report on UK infectious diseases shows rises in endemic and vaccine-preventable infections. Such diseases caused 20%+ hospital bed usage, costing Ā£6bn in 2023-24. This winter has shown us how reduced immunity has brought record infections. We must get our vaccinations. You can also get them at local pharmacies.
Since September 2023 the Mid & South Essex dental access initiative has delivered over 23,500 Urgent Appointments.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has launched a new campaign to help keep antibiotics working and tackle the threat of antibiotic resistance.
Antibiotic resistance is a major public health threat. New attitudinal research by UKHSA highlights that almost half the UK population (42%) are concerned about how the issue affects them. Yet, over half (54%) are either unsure thereās anything they can do to prevent antibiotics becoming less effective at treating infections (28%) or incorrectly believe thereās nothing they can do themselves (26%). So please:
- Donāt take antibiotics for colds and flu, which they donāt work for, and this remains one of the biggest misconceptions about taking antibiotics
- only take antibiotics when you have been prescribed them and taking them as directed by a healthcare professional
- donāt save antibiotics for future use.
Scientists believe they have found a new effective antibiotic for gonorrhoea in a clinical trial. Gepotidacin can treat and clear the sexually transmitted infection just as well as existing antibiotics and appears to be able to tackle some emerging drug-resistant ‘superbug’ strains too according to The Lancet. Gonorrhoea is one of the most common STIs in the UK and cases have been rising. In 2023, over 85,000 gonorrhoea diagnoses were reported in England alone – the highest number since records began in 1918. Most cases were treatable, but some strains can’t be dealt with so easily. Over time, the bacterium has developed resistance to most classes of available antibiotics and experts fear it may become untreatable in the future, unless new drugs are found.
Dr Katy Sinka, consultant epidemiologist and head of the STI section at UK Health Security Agency, said it was “really promising” to see a successful trial for a new antibiotic to treat gonorrhoea. “As gonorrhoea becomes increasingly resistant to antibiotics, it could become untreatable in future and cause serious problems like pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility. Trials like this are so important to help us discover new treatment options.”
She said the best way to prevent an STI is by using a condom. If someone has had condom-less sex with a new or casual partner, they should get tested.
“Early detection not only protects a person’s health but prevents transmission to others. Testing is quick, free and confidential,” she said.
Gonorrhoea: quick facts
- Gonorrhoea is easily passed from person to person through unprotected sex
- Around one in 10 infected men and almost half of infected women do not experience any symptoms.
Cancer pill gave me ‘four years of extra time’. According to the BBC, Linda Kelly, 67, has advanced breast cancer which has spread to her bones and chest wall, but says a new pill has given her extra years of life and time to travel with her husband. “It does let you have a normal kind of life and you forget you have cancer,” she says of the new drug capivasertib, which has been recommended for NHS use in England and Wales, and is funded now in England.
Linda is one of more than 1,000 women with incurable breast cancer who could benefit from the drug, which can slow progression of the disease. The side-effects for her were minimal and it’s allowed her to go on holiday to New Zealand with her husband Neil last year and plan a trip to the US this year.
“You feel the drug is working and you can be a lot calmer – it’s given me nearly four years of extra time,” she says. In trials with 708 patients, when combined with hormone therapy, the drug doubled the time the cancer took to grow, from 3.6 months to 7.3 months, and shrank tumours in 23% of patients.
One day, a saliva test may help “turn the tide” on prostate cancer, UK scientists claim.
It analyses men’s DNA to work out who was born with the greatest risk of developing the disease. Targeting them for prostate biopsies and MRI scans discovered some aggressive cancers that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. However, the test has not yet been proven to save lives and experts say it will be “years” before such tests could be used routinely.
Around 12,000 men in the UK die from prostate cancer every year. Calls for the routine testing of healthy men – known as screening – have grown louder since Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy announced he had terminal prostate cancer. Screening has been rejected in the past because using the current test – which looks for levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in the blood ā risks causing more harm than good.
Public health news is on our website and in weekly e-newsletters. SWF Library provides online services and help with internet access. For health & welfare information and subscription to our newsletter, email swfhealthsocial@outlook.com , or leave voicemails on 01245 322079. Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā https://swfhealthsocial.co.uk/
With our best wishes for a Happy & Healthy Easter.
SWF Health & Social Care Group 