On 22nd May, the Local Medical Committees (LMC) Conference in York will debate a motion that calls for discussions with the UK government about introducing charges for GP services in England and Wales. Local Medical Committees are independent bodies that represent GPs.
Downloadable letter to Calderdale GPs: make sure the NHS stays free at the point of need Continue reading
Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees group had a great morning in sunny Brighouse. With 10 members on their information stall, they talked to the public, gave out leaflets and added
signatures to a petition to save Calderdale and Huddersfield A&E departments. Just short of 300 people signed the petition at the stall. Continue reading
Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has coughed up £1m out of its non-recurrent budget in order to fund an as-yet ill defined project to end loneliness in Calderdale.
This £1m NHS money complements the Council’s existing neighbourhood schemes, which cost £0.25m a year. Continue reading
Philip Grey, a regulatory lawyer at national law firm Mills & Reeve, has explained in
the Guardian Healthcare Professionals Network what NHS bodies must do to fulfill their
legal duty to involve the public at the planning stage of proposed reconfigurations, in
the development of specific proposals and in the decisions.
You can help build the case for a challenge to the Strategic Review by reading the list of what NHS bodies must and must not do and telling us if you are aware of any ways they have deviated from these requirements. Continue reading
Plain Speaker is gathering info about how Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups carry out their “engagement” process for the Strategic Review/Right Care Right Time Right Place proposals.
This is to see if they are complying with their legal duties to involve the public in decisions about reconfiguring the NHS. If they’re not, there will be grounds for making a legal challenge to the proposed Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS shake up.
Members of the public, patients, staff and members of various NHS organisations have a valuable role to play, in monitoring public events, staff engagement, community groups engagement and NHS networks engagement. For details, see below. Continue reading
The public seats were full at a Special Council meeting on 16th April, where Councillors unanimously passed a motion calling on Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, Locala and the South West Yorkshire Foundation Partnership Trust to withdraw their Strategic Review/Strategic Outline Case for the future of health and social care in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.
The Strategic Review proposals include the preferred option of downgrading Calderdale Royal Hospital A&E and turning the hospital into a small planned care clinic. Continue reading
Hey ho. Politicians, eh? Hopes of cross-party unity in defence of our NHS in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield have withered faster than a plucked celandine.
First the LibDems and now the Tories have put forward amendments to the original Labour motion. This called on CHFT, Locala and SWYFPT to withdraw their Strategic Review and Strategic Outline Case for the transformation of the NHS and social care, and also called for some kind of Health and Social Care Commission to find out what a decent NHS and social care in the area should be like. Continue reading
Here are suggested Terms of Reference – what do you all think?
The Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield People’s Commission of Inquiry (hereinafter CHPCI ) shall examine the decision of CHFT,Locala and SWYFPT to issue a Strategic Review and Strategic Outline Case for the transformation of NHS and social care, that includes reducing and downgrading hospital services and replacing them with a cost-cutting system for integrated health and social care in the community that is not evidence based, and the context for this: the fundamental changes being made to the NHS over the last 40 years. Continue reading
I have been having a think about the Labour Party motion to the Special Council meeting at 6pm on Wednesday 16th April, and the recently-announced LibDem amendment.
Imo, a people’s commission of inquiry should be set up by the independent campaign group, Band Together For Our NHS – not by the two councils and clinical commissioning groups, as both Labour and LibDem motions propose. Continue reading
Last week a lively meeting of 40 to 50 people, chaired by Unison’s Mike Parkinson, agreed to set up a Steering Group of about 15 people who volunteered at the meeting.
The meeting agreed: Continue reading