£2m extra to be pumped into services at Neath Port Talbot Hospital

“@ABM_Health, thanks for that, I'll pass it on the next time someone from the hospital complains to me.”

“To answer nice_nails

You may be interested to know what we are doing at the moment to communicate with our staff.

We've been keeping our staff very fully informed throughout this change. We have a 'Rumourline' set up on our staff intranet, where staff can anonymously post questions and concerns which we then answer, for example.

We also post updates and press releases on the intranet, and the intranet is interactive (rather like this newspaper site) where staff can post questions and views to all of the press releases and staff bulletins which appear there. It's been deliberately designed so staff can do this anonymously, to encourage everyone who wants to take part; and to answer concerns as quickly as possible. Their comments, and any responses, are published for all staff to see.

We have also been holding two staff forums at Neath Port Talbot Hospital every Monday, with senior executives and clinicians attending to talk face to face with staff, give them the latest updates and take part in a Q&A session at the end.

A note is taken of the Q&As raised, and these are then posted on the intranet afterwards for staff who couldn't make the forums to read (and again comment on, via the intranet feedback).

Our Chief Executive, Paul Roberts, also writes a weekly blog on the intranet, and again this is interactive allowing staff to comment and ask questions directly of the Chief Executive, and the ensuing discussion is published for all staff to see.

In addition, we hold monthly team briefs where information is given to senior managers and clinicians and they in turn pass this information to their own teams, who pass it on to theirs, and so on, to try and catch staff who may not easily be able to access the intranet.

We also do as much as we can to share information and updates with patients and the general public. We issue regular press releases to press and media, and also post them on our website, Facebook site and on Twitter. We also have a network of information screens at our four main hospitals, with news and information updates which we refresh monthly.

And of course, by now you will see that we do our best to get invovled with discussions and answering questions as best we can in ways like this - on the Evening Post website.

I'm more than happy to continue to talk to you, and everyone else, on this forum. If I don't know the answer to a question raised straight away, I will find out and get back to you.”

“mmm, maybe I've been misinformed by your staff and ambulancemen, any chance we could have an online questions and answers with you, we could even use this site, it would give the employees a chance to understand exactcly what's going on and would also be nice for the general public to finally be able to chose whose side they are on and whether yourselves or the staff at NPT hospital are bending the truth. I'm sure the evening post will have no objections in publicising the event, and I'm sure I can arrange for a selected fiew from the hostpital to participate.”

“Sorry - missed out a word in my response

Should say: " ...existing inpatient who becomes seriously unwell ..."”

“nice-nails - to answer your points:

What media blackout? I'm afraid I have no idea what you are talking about. There was no such thing - why would there be? We were asked daily for several days by the press and media how the move went, and we reported back that it had gone as smoothly as it could and there were no issues to report.

There are still doctors in Neath Port Talbot Hospital and if there is an emergency involving an existing inpatient who becomes seriously then there is clinical expertise available at the hospital to deal with it. (What we do not have is enough doctors to deal with people who are already emergencies being admitted to the hospital - hence the service change.)

I cannot comment on individual private hospitals, as we are the NHS and can only comment on NHS issues. But I can say generally that the shortage of doctors which affect NHS hospitals would not affect private hospitals as they do not have this grade of doctors working for them.”

“**Cardiac arrest”

“And is it true that if a patient in NPT hospital cariacs arrest or such the staff have to phone 999 for a doctor”

“Also why was there a media blackout when the services were transfered”

“So how come the private hospitals get doctors, to me it seems to be the basic strategy of supply and demand, if there's a shortage of a commodity obviously the price goes up”

“So they pay more is that what you're saying”