conditions of funding The Metro Centre Ltd for First Point

http://rug.moonfruit.com is a site for long term users of Roehampton Clinic

http://www.selondon.nhs.uk/a/1078 - consultation on services over the next few years. Thanks to FirstPoint / Metrocentre for providing the link. Written feedback is accepted for a short while; face-to-face feedback consultation has probably ended by the time anyone reads this.

http://www.selondon.nhs.uk/a/1078

Please note the data error on page 44 of the main report. Under KPIs for Service Coordination / Assessment (Provider: First Point- Metro).
The sentence should read 'Service is contracted to deliver 1213 assessments annually (2010/11); 1219 assessments were completed in 2010/11'.

Commissioners would like to apologise for this inaccuracy and would ask that any further queries / errors identified by readers be addressed through the consultation process and these will be noted and corrected in the final report.

NHS reply:

The Metro Centre Ltd is funded by NHS South West London Croydon Borough Team on behalf of all other South London Primary Care Trusts, namely, Croydon, Merton, Sutton, Richmond, Kingston, Wandsworth, Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Bexley & Greenwich (except Bromley).

Metro Centre LTD is paid £250,000pa on a quarterly basis to deliver the First Point, service co-ordination function for the South London HIV Partnership (SLHP). First Point are contracted to provide a registration, assessment, onward referral and reassessment function for all people living with HIV in South London (PLHIV). The service is provided from clinics across South London and at Metro offices based in Greenwich and Vauxhall; assessments are provided there or can be delivered over the phone depending on the clients’ preference. The service is contracted to report back on service usage, trends and unmet client need in order to inform better commissioning processes and future service development.

It is the responsibility of First Point workers to carry out assessments so that: the client is best informed about the services that they need and can access; that there is a single point of contact for the client as and when their needs change; and that this information is collected and collated in a single repository, to inform service provision in the future. First Point staff are well informed about partnership services, and these are publicised within all South London HIV Partnership leaflets and promotional material, and used to inform onward referral for the client during an assessment.

First Point use a Knowledge base commissioned from NAM (National Aids Map) that organises all services available to PLHIV, by location, type of service and referral criteria. The knowledge base is regularly updated by NAM and used during the assessment so that the client is given the best possible referral to services depending on their need.

The most effective way for the client to gain the information about HIV health and social care services most appropriate for them is through a First Point assessment, whereby a client’s needs would be determined and appropriate referrals made. This is also the best way for commissioners to track both met and unmet need and develop an evidence base for future commissioning, hence the importance of the referral and reassessment. This is the preferred mode of entry to SLHP services. Clients are of course able to access any service they require by directly going to those providers, but if they access other SLHP services then they will be advised to benefit from a full assessment from a First Point worker in order to support their immediate and ongoing needs.

As a partnership we offer every single client the opportunity to provide feedback on the quality and appropriateness of service provision. In reality, of course, some people do not want to give feedback and the new SLHP model understood this from the outset. The idea of offering 100% of the pool of service users the easy opportunity to feedback has meant that a higher proportion of them have provided feedback data, which has enabled us to improve and better target services, which has subsequently brought in more of the clients most in need.

Feedback is given to an independent provider on behalf of the SLHP and is collected and collated by NAW solutions, I would suggest that you get in touch with Nathan Williams, email: xxxxxx.xxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.xx.xx