OXFORDSHIRE has become one of the first areas in the country to appoint a winter director to oversee all health and social care services in the hope it will help the system cope with this year’s winter pressures. 
Today sees the launch of the ‘winter plan’ which will bring local NHS trusts, health commissioners and the county council under the same umbrella in an effort to streamline working and free up capacity across the county’s already stretched health and social care services.
Last year the county’s acute hospitals issued a ‘black alert’ on three separate occasions as A&E rooms struggled to deal with a heavy flu season, poor weather and a lack of staff.
Hundreds of elective operations were cancelled to free up bed space with health chiefs admitting at the time the service was ‘close to the edge’.
However, newly-appointed winter director Tehmeena Ajmal, said this year the system was much better prepared with the focus firmly on prevention, while minimising the time those who are admitted spend in a hospital bed. 
She said: “Last year was challenging - not just for us but across the country, and not only in the number of people coming in, but also how sick they were.
“We have been thinking about this since April, working early to put things in place.
“When we look at last winter we had people working very, very hard to deal with the pressures, but we didn’t co-ordinate services well enough.
“We spent too much time trying to get people out of hospital instead of trying to help them avoid having to go there in the first place.”
The winter team will include social services, GPs, hospitals, ambulance services, mental health services and charities creating a more responsive system, capable of making day to day county-wide decisions, based on day to day information, according to Ms Ajmal.
Charities, such as Age UK, and other organisations will also offer help and advice to patients providing further support to the system.
This year, the Oxford Mail will be working closely with the trust to bring you all the latest updates on services and, importantly, advice on how you can keep well this winter. 
Ms Ajmal said the public also have a role to play to help keep themselves fit by taking measures such as the flu vaccine.
She said: “This approach will also rely on people having their own winter plan to help protect from coughs, colds and flu.
“I would like everyone in Oxfordshire to have a winter plan for themselves and their family, so that they know what they need to do to keep as well as possible, what they can do if they start to get unwell, and how they can look after their elderly neighbour who might not be able to look after themselves.”
Ms Ajmal, who was appointed by the chief executives of Oxford University Hospitals, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford Health, said there were also plans to remove unnecessary work from front line staff so they could spend more time with patients while also making sure patients received treatment in the correct environment – whether that be in an acute hospital bed or in a community hospital – to get them well and home as quickly as possible. 
Health leaders recently told a meeting of the county’s Joint Health and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) the plan would free up hundreds of extra available bed days over the winter.
While welcoming the new way of working and the positive approach, (HOSC) members labelled the targets ‘ambitious’ and ‘incredulous’.
And despite the improved planning many say the root causes of the problems that blight the health services, such as underfunding and a lack of staff, still lie untouched, and until tackled hospitals and GPs will continue to be placed under undue pressure.
For example understaffed wards have seen OUH close even more beds this year (126 currently, compared to 92 in September last year) while the waiting list for elective treatments has grown significantly.
Though, bed blocking (caused when an otherwise healthy patient is unable to be discharged from hospital because care packages are not in place) has come down since last year.
County councillor Susanna Pressel, and HOSC member, said: “The chief execs have appointed an impressive new officer to oversee the new winter plan.
“She seems to have hit the ground running, which is good. 
“However, the cuts to the NHS budget, the rising demand (especially in winter) and the continuing problems with recruitment and retention of staff make it difficult to be optimistic about the future.” 
You can read more about keeping well this winter in the Mail over the coming weeks.