Want an explanation of NHS Commissioners’ plans to scrap public consultation on NHS shakeup plans? You could email your ward councillors

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Here is the email I’ve sent to my ward Councillors (below). Please feel free to use it as a template, if you’d like the Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel to find out why Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group wants to avoid public consultation on the “Right Care” shakeup of our NHS and social care services.

The next Scrutiny Panel meeting is tomorrow – Tuesday 12th August at 6pm.

The Scrutiny Panel is the Council version of a House of Commons Select Committee. It has the power to call the NHS organisations to account and can issue an injunction to stop them from carrying out any potentially illegal or dodgy actions. It can also refer them to the Secretary of State for Health.

You can find your Councillors’ contact details here.
Please share this with anyone else you think might be interested.

EMAIL TO COUNCILLORS STARTS:

Dear  Councillors

Please will you ask the Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel to call in Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to explain why they want their Governing Body to agree to shelve the public consultation on the “Right Care” acute and emergency hospital cuts and their replacement by the Kaiser Permanente system of care in the community?

This proposal is contained in a new Report, “Delivery of the Five Year Plan – Right Care, Right Time, Right Place” that Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group is to ask its Governing Body to approve at its meeting this Thursday. The Report is downloadable from the Calderdale CCG website -item 6 on the agenda.

It states that the CCGs in both Calderdale and Huddersfield aim to go ahead and introduce the new care in the community system without any public consultation.

If the Governing Body approves this, the CCGs will only consult the public on the acute and emergency hospital cuts once the new community care system is in place.

By then the cuts will be a foregone conclusions, since the NHS Commissioners’ budget won’t cover both the new care in the community system – which the Report rebrands as “Care Closer to Home” – and the existing hospital services.

The Report strongly indicates that the new care in the community system is likely to be commissioned from private companies.

This move to sidestep public consultation seems to be a highly dodgy move, since the CCGs are legally obliged to consult the public on significant service changes and the Report is clear that introducing the new “Care Closer to Home” system is a significant service change.

Ken Roe, the Chair of Band Together For Our NHS, says that,

“The ever-moving goal posts and increasing secrecy surrounding this project raise serious questions about the motivations behind the recommended timeline change and the competency of the team tasked to deliver the process. It appears that public opinions, needs and wants mean little or nothing to an organisation hell bent on implementing their preferred changes at all costs.”

I hope you agree that the Scrutiny Panel should call in the CCG asap if the Governing Body approves this set of proposals and will ask them to do this.

Kind regards

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