Category Archives: Social fairness

Some facts and figures about Calderdale Royal Hospital PFI debt repayments

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The costs of repaying the PFI debt and of paying for the expensive PFI hospital maintenance and service contracts are one of the causes of the Calderdale and Huddersfield hospital Trust’s finance problems.

PFI costs, funding shortage and Strategic Review of future of NHS and social care

Shortage of funding is behind the proposed closure of Calderdale A&E and at least 100 acute hospital beds, and their replacement by a new system of care in the community that is based on an American private health care system used by a company called Kaiser Permanente.

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Cut to Calderdale’s A&E is only part of proposed massive change to hospitals and community health and social care services

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More information has become available about the proposal to cut the Calderdale Royal Hospital A&E department and centralise A&E sevices in Huddersfield.

Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group has clarified that this is only part of a proposal for a whole new model of providing hospital and community services for people across Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.

It involves a massive shakeup of the way the whole NHS operates in our areas.
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Public meeting launches campaign to save Calderdale and Huddersfield A&E departments

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A well-attended public meeting in Hebden Bridge yesterday decided to campaign to stop cuts to accident and emergency departments in Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals and protect vital emergency care services for everyone in the area.

The Upper Calder Valley Save our A&E action group will campaign strongly with other organisations and groups in Calderdale and Kirklees, to make sure that everyone in both areas continues to have proper, safe access to 24 hour emergency services in their local hospitals.
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New York finance company profits from Huddersfield care homes & Hebden Bridge retirement homes

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New Century Care, which runs old people’s care homes across the UK, including five in Huddersfield, has just come under the control of  Anchorage Capital Group, an American investment company based in New York.

Anchorage Capital borrowed £80m from Lloyds Bank to buy the controlling stake in the care home company. New Century Care Founder Paul Warren is keeping a significant stake in the company.

Anchorage Capital has also recently recapitalised retirement housing developer McCarthy and Stone, the company which is building retirement flats on the Victoria Road site in Hebden Bridge, where the engineering factory used to be.
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Plan is to move #Calderdale’s emergency care to Huddersfield A&E

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A series of presentations this afternoon at the Huddersfield Health & Wellbeing committee has revealed that as expected, Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust’s (CHFT) preference is to downgrade A&E at Calderdale.

Halifax Courier reported from the meeting that CHFT recommends closure of Calderdale A&E.

Calderdale Councillor Tim Swift said that the Report from the National Clinical Advisory Team which contains the detailed basis for the presentations will be publicly available on Tuesday.
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Protect #Calderdale A&E public meeting, 26th February, Hebden Bridge

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Anyone who’s interested in getting involved in a campaign to protect Calderdale A&E from any reduction in its services is welcome at a public meeting called by UNISON’s Michael Parkinson and Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker, at the Fox & Goose, 9 Heptonstall Road, Hebden Bridge HX7 6AZ,  at 6pm on Wednesday 26th February.

Members of existing Protect Our NHS groups, such as Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees, are welcome. There is strength in numbers and it would be good to link up with existing/ongoing campaigns.
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Yorkshire ambulance staff strike to protect patient safety from effects of £46m cuts

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As Yorkshire paramedics and ambulance staff go on strike for two days,  Unite is calling for an independent inquiry by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) into the long-running Yorkshire ambulance dispute,

Unite, the country’s largest union, said that such an inquiry was needed so the Yorkshire public could judge for itself the impact on patient safety of £46 million of cuts over five years.
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#Calderdale #NHS bureaucrat says public have no access to key A&E report

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The public does not have access to the National Clinical Advisory Team (NCAT) Report on the Calderdale A&E reorganisation. This report contains proposals about the future of Calderdale and Huddersfield A&E departments.

Dr Walsh, Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s Chief Officer, told NHS Calderdale 38 Degrees that Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT) has commissioned the NCAT report, and the report is internal to the CHFT.

It will be late spring before Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group decides what it wants to do about the report’s proposals and then reveals this in a public consultation.

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#Sowerby Bridge folk queue to sign petition to protect Calderdale NHS

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On Saturday 18th January, people queued in Sowerby Bridge market to sign a petition asking Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group to protect local NHS services from profit-hungry private health companies. Over 80 signatures were added to the petition at the Calderdale 38 degrees NHS campaign group’s information stall.
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