Category Archives: Social fairness

26th June deadline for Kirklees NHS commissioners to reply to Freedom of Info request about award of £238m contract

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A Kirklees resident is waiting for a reply to his Freedom of Information (FOI) request about the award of a £238m contract for “Care Closer to Home”. This 7 year contract is for community health services that include district nurses, health visitors, speech and language therapy, foot care and physiotherapy. The reply is due on Friday 26th June and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group FOI team says,

“The CCG is mindful of the response deadline and expects to be in a position to respond by no later than 26th June.”

However, a reply doesn’t necessarily include the information that has been requested. So we shall have to wait and see if it does. Continue reading →

Calderdale Council is privatising public health services

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Here’s a (rather long) summary of everything I’ve been able to find about Calderdale Council’s ongoing privatisation of Calderdale public health services.

Many members of the public want to know which public health and social care services Calderdale Council is privatising, and why. There seems to be little or no publicly available set of information about this. (Update: Although the Calderdale Council contracts register from 2016 onwards is available on Yortender)

The 2012 Health and Social Care Act transferred responsibility for some specific public health services from NHS Primary Care Trusts to Local Authorities, which also became responsible for health improvement and health protection.

Continue reading →

Upper Calder Valley to be “Vanguard” testbed for cost-cutting model of NHS and social care

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Last year saw big protests against proposals to close Calderdale A&E and other acute Calderdale Royal Hospital services like acute paediatrics and complex maternity, and to transfer hospital services for the frail elderly and people with chronic illnesses into GP-run services in four “localities” in Calderdale, in the hope that this will reduce acute and emergency admissions.

Although there is no evidence that this will work, these so-called “Right Care Right Time Right Place” and “Care Closer to Home” plans haven’t gone away – far from it.

Dr Matt Walsh, Chief Officer of Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), told the 11th June CCG Governing Body meeting that these plans are now accelerating, as a result of the Tory government’s pressure since the election. He said,

“Work is going on apace on future models of service delivery.” Continue reading →

NHS bosses to report on plans for Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary at public meeting this afternoon

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Dr Matt Walsh, Chief Officer of Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCC), will update the CCG governing Body this afternoon about the latest plans for the “transformation” of Calderdale NHS and social care. The meeting is public and takes place at 2pm, in a Function Room at Shay Stadium, Halifax.

The Calderdale NHS and social care shake up has been carried out somewhat under the radar since last August, when the Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups backed off from their scheduled autumn 2014 public consultation, in the face of a loud and determined public “No” to their proposals.

These proposals included the closure of Calderdale A&E and other acute hospital services at Calderdale Royal Hospital, such as acute children’s services and complex maternity services, and the transfer of many hospital-based services into the “community,” with the aim of cutting acute and emergency hospital admissions. Continue reading →

Hot topics at NHS chiefs’ 11th June public meeting: ongoing NHS shake-up saga, A&E woes & risks to Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service

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Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group Governing Body is meeting tomorrow, June 11 at 2pm, Function Room 2, Shay Stadium, Shaw Hill, Halifax. It’s open to the public, so if you’re free why not come along.

They put the agenda and papers online late, so this report is also late.

Key issues for this Governing Body meeting include:

The ongoing Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS shake-up saga

  • What is to happen to Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary?
  • What is happening to the new care in the community scheme, aka Care Closer to Home?
  • What is happening with the new “Vanguard” scheme?

Continue reading →

Kirklees NHS petition reflects public concerns about health service privatisation and untried ‘Care Closer to Home’ scheme

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On 28 May representatives of Dewsbury Keep Our NHS Public and North Kirklees NHS Support Group presented a petition from 1,258 local people to Cllr Viv Kendrick, Chair of Kirklees Health and Wellbeing Board, at its monthly meeting.

Comprising 3 scrolls, with a combined length of over 18m, the petition called on the Health and Wellbeing Board to:

  • not give contracts to irresponsible companies who have been found to have defrauded the Government or who have left patients with unsafe levels of health service provision
  • consider the need for staff who work for private contractors to receive a living wage
  • press NHS England and the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) to accept these demands. Continue reading →

Hospital bosses’ “irresponsible” acceptance of £22bn efficiency cuts will harm patient care

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The Secretary of Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees campaign group has slammed a statement by Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals trust’s Chief Executive and other hospital bosses across England, that they’ll accept the government’s proposed £22bn efficiency cuts in exchange for the Prime Minister’s backing for rapid hospital cuts and closures, and funding for “new models of care”.

Among these new models of care are Calderdale’s “Care Closer to Home” scheme, which aims to cut acute and emergency hospital services by taking services for frail elderly and chronically ill patients out of Calderdale Royal Hospital and putting them into the “community”.

Owen Williams, Chief Exec of Calderdale & Huddersfield hospitals Trust, recently co-signed an NHS Confederation letter to the Prime Minister where NHS bosses accepted the government’s £22bn “efficiency” cuts programme for the NHS, while calling on the new Conservative government to honour its manifesto promise of an £8bn extra funding/year to carry out the big changes identified in NHS England’s 5 Year Forward View, plus funding for “transformation” and social care. Continue reading →

Hospital cuts and review of whole local NHS as “perfect storm” of increasing financial pressures batters our hospitals

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Staff from Monitor (the NHS competition enforcer) were at the Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) meeting on 25 March to explain what Monitor is doing about our Hospitals Trust deficit.

In 2015/16 and 2016/17 the short term plan comes down to making cuts (aka “efficiency savings”), as recommended by Price Waterhouse Cooper accountancy company, and also using all the Trust’s cash reserves to pay off the deficit. CHFT will present this short term plan in  May 2015.

In a Groundhog Day moment, the JHSC heard that CHFT’s longer term strategic financial plan for a cost-saving “reconfiguration” of the hospitals is likely to include proposals for putting all acute and emergency services on one site. And there will also be a review of the whole “local health economy”, to be carried out by all the area’s NHS organisations and both Local Authorities. Continue reading →

21 questions about Calderdale Council’s proposal to privatise Community Social Work

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Calderdale Council Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel will today (31 March 2015) scrutinise a proposal to set up a pilot that will test the outsourcing/privatisation of Community Social Work.

The cost-cutting aim is to turn the Council’s Support at Home social work service into a Public Service Mutual (PSM), along the lines of the “People to People” scheme in Shropshire – saving Calderdale Council £2.5m in 2017/18.

The Calderdale Community Social Work PSM would be set up in a form to allow ‘commercial’ or  ‘investment’ funding; it would be profit-making and would allow staff to take 35% of the yearly profits. Continue reading →

Privatised wheelchair service doesn’t meet patients’ needs

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Only a few months into the privatised wheelchair services contract, patients (and their parents, in the case of children who use wheelchairs) are complaining at their treatment by Opcare Ltd – the company that the Clinical Commissioning Groups awarded the contract to in 2014.

Cllr Megan Swift is investigating complaints by parents of children with disabilities.

Fern Bast, a Hebden Bridge resident with very restricted mobility and in constant pain as a result of spinal degeneration, has complained at the treatment she’s received from Opcare at their outreach clinic site in Halifax. Continue reading →