Cuts to A&E per capita payments mean A&E departments can’t meet costs

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The Foundation Trust Network Chief Executive, Chris Hopson, recently blogged that cuts to the A&E tariff for patient admissions above the 2008/9 baseline have made it impossible for A&E departments to treat “skyrocketing admissions.”

Calderdale A&E must be running at a loss, because admissions have gone up since 2008/9, but under NHS payment rules drawn up by Monitor and NHS England, Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group is only allowed to pay Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust 30% of the tariff for any A&E admissions over 2008/9 baseline.

Matt Walsh, Chief Officer of Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCCG), told a CCG Governing Body meeting last year that this restriction lay behind CCCG’s request to Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust (CHFT) to commission the National Clinical Advisory Team (NCAT) to review urgent care and to report on recommendations for the CHFT to consider. Continue reading →

Perfect Financial Incompetence in Kirklees community health centres

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5 primary care/community health centres in Kirklees are a PFI project. Kirklees Primary Care Trust closed the financial deal for the PFI project in 2004.

The 2012 Treasury PFI spreadsheet shows the PFI contract is for 30 years and Semperian is the equity holder. The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) is NK Facilities Ltd. Total capital costs are listed as £25m. The total unitary charge (which covers the mortgage repayment and service charges for operating and maintaining the health centres) is £89.6m over the contract duration. Continue reading →

NCAT Report on future of Calderdale & Huddersfield A&E: wave goodbye to our NHS

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The National Clinical Advisory Team Report on the future of Calderdale and Huddersfield A&E, commissioned by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, is now in the public domain after months of secrecy.

This is what its guff about “delivering more care outside the hospital“, “community-focussed care“, “putting the patient first” and “transformation” really means: yesterday £1,222,000,000.00 of our NHS was offered up to Private Health by
NHS Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit,

“Commissioners are seeking genuine, transformational and sustainable service change that recognises the primacy of the patient in the service model…” (links to the contract advertisements are at the end of this article)

West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit will be following hard on their heels if we let the CHFT Strategic Review (which is based on the NCAT Report) go through. Continue reading →

NHS Privatisation news

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Here is news about NHS privatisation, I’ll be updating this Storify collection often, so please come back from time to time for fresh news. The Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust strategic review, that includes proposals for closing Calderdale A&E, reducing hospital beds and treatment and “integrating” NHS and social care in the community, is basically a set of proposals for privatising Calderdale & Kirklees NHS. So it’s worth keeping an eye on new methods of NHS privatisation – forewarned is forearmed. Continue reading →

Cuts, privatisation and next-to-zero democracy: the real story behind #Calderdale and Huddersfield #NHS and social care strategic review

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The example of what’s already happening with Cambridge and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group’s “Integrated care for the elderly” contract has to be one of the strongest arguments against Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust’s proposals for reducing hospital beds, closing Calderdale A&E and integrating health and social care in the community.

The CHFT Strategic Review, and the related Better Care Fund Submission documents, make great play of their proposals for integrated, patient-centred care in the community.

But look at what’s happening with a near-identical proposal in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

National Demonstration against #ATOS received warm support from #Halifax people

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Helen Lasham reports on a warm welcome in Halifax for the anti-ATOS demonstration last
month.

On 19th February 2014, a group met outside the Job Centre Plus buildings in Halifax to demonstrate specifically against the deaths associated with the government-appointed business ATOS, which is responsible for carrying out Work Capability Assessments (fit-for-work tests). Continue reading →

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.
Continue reading →