'Shaping a healthier future' is a programme to improve NHS services for the two million people who live in North West London and will save hundreds of lives each year.

This vision for the future of healthcare in North West London is being taken forward by eight clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), made up of GPs from NW London’s eight primary care trusts (PCTs). They have worked with hospital doctors, nurse leaders, providers of community care, volunteer groups and charities to develop the proposals and to consider the ways health services are being improved elsewhere in London and around the world.

They believe that the way our health services are delivered needs to change now to ensure that we can provide the highest quality care in the future.

NHS staff are totally committed to this high quality care, but need to have the right workforce, skills and surroundings to deliver this for patients. Increasingly, a number of different factors in NW London are making it very difficult for us to look after patients in this way.

We therefore developed a vision for how we want health services to be developed and improved in NW London.

Between 2 July and 8 October, we ran a public consultation to listen to what you thought about the proposals.  We attended or arranged over 200 meetings, ran 2 roadshows in all 8 boroughs plus additional roadshows in the neighbouring boroughs of Camden, Richmond and Wandsworth, sent over 73,000 consultation documents out, ensured all libraries, doctors, pharmacies, hospital sites, town halls and many more were sent materials to display, took part in 3 public debates and had nearly 20,000 hits to the website. All responses to the consultation were received and analysed by Ipsos MORI, who reported that 17,022 submissions in total were received through the different consultation channels available – official paper and online response forms, emails/letters and petitions.

What happens next

On 19 February, the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT) agreed with all the recommendations put forward by the 'Shaping a healthier future' programme following public consultation. This includes 11 recommendations made in the Decision Making Business Case, as well as two further recommendations which refer to additional proposals for Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals.

The ‘Shaping a healthier future’ proposals will now take 3-5 years to implement, ensuring that improvements in out-of-hospital care are in place before major changes to hospital services are then implemented.

If you have any questions, please contact us by:

• Emailing: consultation@nw.london.nhs.uk
• Calling: 0800 881 5209 (freephone)
• Writing to: FREEPOST SHAPING A HEALTHIER FUTURE CONSULTATION (This must be written in capital letters and on one line. You will not need a stamp.)