Work began to plan community health services for Frenchay in June 2008. Following a feedback from stakeholders, a Project Board with half NHS membership and half non-NHS membership was established to ensure effective local engagement. The aim of the Project Board was to develop recommendations for commissioning future community services at Frenchay for consideration by the Boards of NHS South Gloucestershire and NHS Bristol.

In order to determine what community health services will be needed at Frenchay, in the future, the Frenchay Project Board completed three pieces of work:

• a needs assessment that sets out the health needs of the community, taking into account all transport routes, growths and changes in population and from which areas people are most likely to choose to come to Frenchay for health services.
• a detailed consideration of what rehabilitation services will be required in the future taking account of what is available today, how they fit together and local and national best practice.
• What health services are already provided in the area, what new services are planned and where the gaps lay.

Using this work as a basis, the Project Board identified some very exciting emerging themes for how community health services could be developed at Frenchay which are explained in the Project Board’s Emerging Themes report (January 2010).

The Frenchay Project Board shared this paper with the health scrutiny committees of both South Gloucestershire and Bristol Councils, with GPs in Bristol and South Gloucestershire, with MPs prior to the May 2010 election, and with a range of community groups. Nearly 80 stakeholders and representatives of local groups attended an event on 21 June where the report was well received.

Following this, the Frenchay Project Board developed its recommendations and presented them again to the health scrutiny committees of both South Gloucestershire and Bristol Councils. These proposals and the subsequent business case were then approved by the Boards of NHS South Gloucestershire and North Bristol NHS Trust. These enhanced Emerging Themes proposals and the associated business case will be considered by the Board of NHS Bristol in January 2011.

To find out more read the project documents.