Profiteering consultancy company Ernst and Young in charge of deciding the future of Calderdale and Huddersfield Hospitals Trust

In order to work out if the hospitals Trust is sustainable, given its deficit, the Trust has commissioned Ernst and Young (EY) to come up with a 5 Year Strategic Plan by the end of December 2015. The cost is expected to be £1m, according to a forecast in the Trust’s financial report to the October 29th Board meeting.  £1m for 3 months work seems like a good definition of exorbitant.

At the 21st October Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee, Councillors didn’t question why a profiteering, global management consultancy/accountancy company should decide the future of our hospitals, and the community health services that the hospitals Trust also provides. Continue reading

Plan for possible temporary closure of Calderdale A&E at short notice on grounds of safety

At the 21 October Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) meeting, Councillors asked questions about a proposal for Calderdale A&E to close temporarily at short notice if there was:

“an urgent need on the grounds of safety to temporarily close one of the A&E sites”.

Members of the public are unimpressed by this proposal. A comment on the Save Calderdale Royal Infirmary facebook group asked:

“How is it SAFER for Calderdale people to have to travel to Huddersfield in an emergency? Might be ‘safer’ for the Trust, so they don’t fall foul of target numbers of staff they are supposed to have on site, but I don’t think it’s safer for the patients! What’s the point of cutting waiting times if journey times are twice as long? From Todmorden it will not be possible to get to an A&E (either Blackburn or Huddersfield) in under 40 mins. That is UNSAFE!”

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Scrutiny Committee Councillors need to up their game and protect #Calderdale and #Huddersfield hospitals

The Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) met on Wednesday 21 October, to find out what’s happening with the proposed hospital cuts and changes that are known as Right Care Right Time Right Place.

The meeting was like falling down Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole and arriving in time for the Lobster quadrille.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you consult the public?

The recurring theme at the JHSC was: Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the Public Consultation dance?

JHSC 21 Oct._Quadrille_2

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PFI costs for Calderdale Royal Hospital 2014-15

In 2014-15, the total cost of Calderdale Royal Hospital Private Finance Initiative (PFI)  was £23.570m.

This “unitary charge” was made up of:

Interest on the debt……… £10.929m
Repayment of the debt…..£ 1.497m
Service charge…………….£11.144m

The value of the hospital building is £80.451m.

The total cost (capital and interest) of the PFI debt over its 30 year life is £289,908,000. This leaves out the high service charges, which cover services like portering, domestics, security, catering, maintenance etc Continue reading

Monitor has hospital in stranglehold – hospital cuts and changes consultation on hold

As expected, both Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield NHS commissioners today agreed to postpone the public consultation on proposed hospital cuts and changes. The consultation had been scheduled to start this month.

One burning issue for the public is what NHS bosses want to do to our A&Es. A slide presented at the meeting showed we could end up without a full A&E at either hospital. The slide said that one emergency centre or specialist emergency centre is planned – but draft specifications from NHS England say that only specialist emergency centres provide full A&E care.

The delay to the public consultation is because the Clinical Commissioning Groups don’t know if the hospitals Trust will be financially viable in five years time and are waiting for it to produce a Five Year Financial Plan.

The Trust – along with half the Foundation Trusts in the country – is in deficit. It is under special measures from Monitor, the NHS competition enforcer and financial regulator. Monitor is telling it to make big spending cuts, since Foundation Trusts are not allowed to operate at a loss. Continue reading

Campaigners to question Calderdale & Greater Huddersfield NHS bosses about hospital cuts consultation at 24th September meeting

Calderdale & Kirklees 999 Call for the NHS campaigners have questions for Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups’ Governing Bodies’ meeting. This starts at 12.15pm at Briar Court Hotel in Huddersfield on Thursday 24th September and is open to the public. Continue reading

Confusion over planned bed cuts for Calderdale mental health rehabilitation and recovery patients

Three NHS and social care organisations are planning the future of Calderdale’s mental health rehabilitation and recovery services.

Only two of them have explained their proposals to Councillors on Calderdale Council’s Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel. They want to cut beds and put patients into their own homes with unclear “support” in the community.

If you are affected by these proposals, please contact Plain Speaker.

Research shows that cutting mental health beds puts patients at increased risk of suicide. Continue reading

Privatised wheelchair service complaint still unresolved after 5 months

Fern Bast has good reason to celebrate and praise the NHS in Calderdale. She recently had an amazing, successful operation to repair her damaged, degenerating spine and it is now repairing itself.

However, her experience with Opcare, the company that runs the recently privatised Wheelchair Service, has been less happy – to the extent that in March this year she made a formal complaint to Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) about the completely inappropriate conditions she found, when she attended the Opcare outreach clinic at Beechwood Medical Centre in Halifax, for a fitting for a powered chair.

5 months on, Calderdale CCG has still not got to the bottom of the problem. Continue reading

Renegotiate hospital PFI debts to fair value and use criminal prosecution where necessary

Jeremy Corbyn has called for the Labour party in opposition to campaign for a fund to be set up to bail out NHS trusts from PFI schemes that were forced upon them under the New Labour government.

This is in line with the current draft of the 2015 NHS Reinstatement Bill, that Jeremy Corbyn has co-sponsored as a Private Members Bill along with Caroline Lucas MP and other MPs.

The Bill is due to receive its second reading on 11 March 2016 and it’s vital that all opposition MPs support it – as well as Conservative MPs who respect the wishes of the 77% of Tory supporters who want a publicly-owned and run NHS.

However, not all supporters of the NHS Reinstatement Bill are happy with the section that calls for removal of PFI debts from hospitals and centralisation of the debts in the Treasury, and discussions are underway about proposed amendments to this bit of the Bill.

This is because removing PFI debts from hospitals (which is also the aim of Corbyn’s proposal of fund to buy out the hospital Trusts’ PFI debts) doesn’t do anything to tackle the inappropriate PFI debts, and it helps the PFI lenders launder debts which were arrived at in inappropriate situations – as work by Professor Allyson Pollock documents. Continue reading

NHS bosses’ listening event that wasn’t – oh, and there are “no proposals” for NHS cuts and changes

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – – that’s all.”

I gained entry to Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s 20th August Stakeholder Engagement Event only after picketing it, along with other members of the general public.

A Councillor Councillor recently told NHS bosses they “should seek a wider basis of opinion about their plans” – instead of confining their “engagement” to “people inside the goldfish bowl.”

So there we were, offering a wider basis of opinion. But would the people inside the goldfish bowl be able to hear us? Continue reading