New Haslemere health hub brings specialist care together in one visit | News

A new service designed to support independent, healthy living and prevent existing health conditions deteriorating has opened at Haslemere Hospital, part of Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust. 

The Haslemere Proactive Care Hub (PACH), which is being set up in space previously used for inpatient wards at Haslemere Hospital, brings together a range of healthcare professionals to offer people with long-term conditions a comprehensive health assessment in a single visit. 

The Royal Surrey team is working with local GPs to identify people who can benefit from the service, and inviting them in for a review and follow-up checks as needed.

The aim is to identify small changes in a patient's health early, before they lead to a more serious deterioration that might otherwise go unnoticed until a later, harder-to-treat stage.

Dr Simon Vickers is the Royal Surrey Clinical Director for Proactive Care and also a Guildford-based GP. He said: "What's different about this service is that it's a proactive approach to treating patients, drawing on a range of expertise to provide holistic care. It bolsters the service provided by GPs and will help us identify and address signs of declining health at an earlier stage, when interventions are typically more successful. As well as leading to better health outcomes for patients, this also takes pressure off GPs and hospitals.”

Initially focused on heart failure, the hub runs on Thursdays. During an appointment, which lasts two to three hours, patients can see a cardiologist to assess their heart health, a therapist to assess their strength and risk of falls, and a GP-led primary care team for medication reviews and general health checks. Together, the team will provide personalised care planning.

As the service develops, the team will include a social prescriber, helping to address patients’ wider health and wellbeing needs and connecting them with support available in the community.

The proactive care hub has ambitions to expand rapidly to support those living with a range of other long-term conditions. The Royal Surrey team is working with GPs to identify local care priorities, which may include conditions such as respiratory conditions, diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, with a view to opening up to other conditions on other days early in 2027. 

"One of the brilliant things about this service is its flexibility," Dr Vickers said. "In our local communities, there are lots of people living with long-term heart failure, which is why we've started with this condition first. Over the next few months, we'll continue working with local healthcare providers to establish other priority conditions, so it truly is a service that responds to our unique, local needs."

Once the Haslemere model is established, we hope to replicate it across our group with Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals and in other communities across West Surrey.

The service supports the government's Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England. This calls for earlier intervention in long-term conditions and a shift from treating sickness to preventing it, and empowering people to manage their own health with access to the right support. It also reflects the plan’s aim of bringing care closer to people’s homes.