Here is my email, please consider sending one of your own before the Scrutiny Panel meeting at 6pm today, Halifax Town Hall. If you can join our lobby at 5.30pm that would be brilliant too.
(You will see two SP members have gone and new ones come in, as a result of the recent Tory/LibDem Council coup. It is now entirely blokes.) Continue reading
Today (12th August) Calderdale Council Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel (SP) will decide how to respond to the public petition that calls on the SP to:
The Scrutiny Officer’s advice is that the SP should pass the buck to the so-called People’s Commission and refuse to act on the petition. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
The Secretary of Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees Campaign Group reports on the first meeting of Calderdale Commission on health and social care on Tuesday 29th July, where she and two other members of the group handed over a paper copy of the 38 degrees submission. This says that local hospital services are excellent and must stay in place.
There were three members of Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees and about 3 other members of the public at the meeting. It was a terrible turnout. Continue reading
Dear Calderdale Council Commission on health and social care,
In response to your open request for submissions to your Commission, I’d like to explain why I won’t be submitting anything or taking part in Commission events.
This is not because I’m apathetic, but because I have no confidence that your Commission has the remit, powers or disinterested membership to successfully carry out its task of eliciting the public’s views on the important question of what kind of NHS and social care we want in Calderdale. Continue reading
Many people in England are unaware that the NHS in Scotland (and in Wales and Northern Ireland) has always been a separate organisation. The Scottish National Health Service was set up by the NHS Scotland Act in 1947 and today in 2014 is a very different NHS compared to that in England.
The Scottish NHS abolished the internal market in 2004 and brought back area health authorities. Nowadays the NHS in Scotland is again about co-operation, not competition. There are no trusts, no secretive commercial confidentiality considerations, no fragmentation of services, no wasteful and costly commercial transaction costs for tendering services.
Given the cuts and privatisation that are now afflicting the English NHS as a result of the Health and Social Care Act, it’s worth looking at how NHS Scotland works, since this offers a good model for restoring the English NHS.
This would give us something to tell the politicians, who are all now busily gearing up for the 2015 General Election. Continue reading
At Calderdale Council Adults Health and Scrutiny Panel meeting on 28th July,
Cllr Adam Wilkinson doggedly took the lead in questioning NHS chiefs about their confusing proposals for hospital bed cuts in both the 2014-16 Balanced Plan, and in the Strategic Outline Case.
If you don’t want to read a lot of detail about the scrutiny, you can could read the idiots’ guide to the Scrutiny Panel meeting instead.
The Balanced Plan, which the Scrutiny Panel only found out about through reports leaked in local media, aims to make cuts and generate new income in order to cope with the Trust’s £20m funding shortfall this financial year and a £19m shortfall in 2015-16.
The Strategic Outline Case proposes to cut acute and emergency hospital care from 2016-17, and replace it with an as-yet unspecified system of care in the community. Continue reading
Calderdale Council Adult Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel meeting on 28th July failed to effectively question hospitals Trust chiefs about their “Balanced Plan” for meeting a £20m funding shortfall this financial year, and a £19m shortfall in 2015-16.
By failing to provide clear straightforward information, equally the NHS chiefs failed in their duty of candour as public servants.
Chatting after the meeting, a group of Save Our Hospitals campaigners expressed deep scepticism about the conduct of the meeting as well as confusion about what had been said. Continue reading
Plain Speaker is pleased to publish the Submission from the Calderdale 38 degrees NHS Campaign Group to the Calderdale Commission on health and social care.
Over the last 9 months, Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS has held honest discussions with over 1500 Calderdale residents about the proposals for local NHS cuts and service changes.
This submission summarises their considered views. Continue reading
On Monday 28th July, Calderdale Council Adults Health and Social Care (AHSC) Scrutiny Panel is to question the Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals trust Chief Executive about the Trust’s leaked “Balanced Plan”.
The Balanced Plan shows how the Trust plans to meet its £20m funding shortfall this year. It was a secret known only to the Trust’s Executive Board, until it was leaked to local media a few weeks ago.
An AHSC Scrutiny Panel member has told Plain Speaker there may be an opportunity for members of the public to question the Trust’s Chief Executive, but this depends on the Chairman, Cllr Malcolm James.
Anyone who’d like to put a question to Owen Williams about the Balanced Plan needs to ask the Scrutiny Panel Chair before the meeting, which is at 4.30pm, Monday 28th July, at Halifax Town Hall. The meeting is open to all members of the public, whether or not you’d like to question Owen Williams. Continue reading