Today Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group – last summer accused by the Chair of Calderdale Council Adults Health & Social Care Scrutiny Panel of swimming around in their own little goldfish bowl instead of openly discussing issues with the public – sent me a singularly useless and uninformative response to questions I sent in for their 20th Jan 2016  meeting, held to rubber stamp their decision to “consult” the public on their hospital cuts plans.

Here is Calderdale CCG’s response to my questions for 20 Jan 2016 CCGs meeting

It isn’t surprising that their reply is useless –  everyone knows they are puppets on SImon Stevens’ and Jeremy Hunt’s strings.

Here are their useless replies to my questions

Question 1 – Maximising the value/potential of CRH

This totally fails to answer my question, which I asked Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group precisely because there’s not enough information on p112 of the Pre Consultation Business Case to answer this question! All it does is make a number of assertions without giving any evidence to support them.

 

Here is what it says on p112 – 3rd box down – Value for Money

Does anyone think this explains how making CRH the acute/emergency hospital maximises its value/potential? If so, please explain!

Question 4 – Where are the documents that show the financial modelling that identified how to maximise the value/potential of the PFI site?

The CCG’s response to my question 4 is exactly as useless as their response to my question 1 – they refer me to the Pre Consultation Business Case (PCBS) s7.2 page 95, which again doesn’t provide the necessary information – which is why I asked the question in the first place.

I asked for the documents that show the financial modelling – the CCG refers me to a table that summarises the outputs of the financial modelling. How did the Trust generate these figures? Where are their workings? What is the evidence that these figures make any kind of sense in the real world? Obviously I shall have to ask the hospitals Trust.

And the Joint Health Scrutiny Committee should have been asking these questions at its 29th Jan meeting anyway. Instead of letting themselves get fobbed off by the CCGs turning up without the consultation document that the Councillors were meant to be scrutinising on behalf of us, the public. The least we deserve is an honest, fair consultation. Which we’re not going to get, if things go on as they are.

Here is PCBC section 7.2, page 95

Question 6: What weight did the CCGs assign to maximising the value/potential of the PFI site (CRH) when they decided to make it the acute/A&E hospital?

OK this is an object lesson in the importance of how you word a question.

The CCG wriggled out of this one, because in it I referred to a decision which they can’t admit to having made, because this would be evidence of pre-determination – ie that they’ve made up their minds before the consultation. And pre-determination means a consultation is unlawful. I should have said something like: “…when they decided that their preferred option was to make it the acute/A&E hospital.”

As to the evaluation, again they’ve done the same thing as they’ve done in their other replies, which is to refer me to a bit of the PCBC which fails to provide the information I asked for, which is why I asked the CCG to provide it! These guys are geniuses at nuttiness and circular communications! Round and round and round we go.

Here is Section 8 p106 of the PCBC – where does it:

• state what the financial assumptions are,
• show the comparison of these financial assumptions
• state the weightings that the CCGs placed on maximising the value/potential of the PFI site (CRH), when coming to their preferred option of having this as the acute/A&E hospital?

Last but not least.

Question 8: Is the intention to sell off the new planned care hospital once it is up and running?

The CCG’s answer completely ignores my question.

At the 29th Jan Calderdale & Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) meeting, Owen WIlliams (Chief Exec of the hospitals Trust, CHFT) said:

“This model that we’ve contributed to – the development of a planned care site & urgent care centre – is absolutely business-critical to CHFT and the broader Calderdale & Huddersfield system. Those elective services are critical not just to patient care but to CHFT financial survivability. It can’t physically go on the CRH site, so without it CHFT and the wider system sustainability is in doubt.”

Owen Williams’ statement begs some questions that the JHSC didn’t ask:

• why is the development of a planned care site and urgent care centre business-critical to CHFT & the rest of the health & social care system?
• Is it just about cutting A&E costs?
• If not, what else is it about?
• How come CHFT has suddenly decided the small planned care hospital can’t go on the CRH site – after nearly 2 years of this being CHFT’s preferred option?