Calderdale and Kirklees Councils’ Joint Health Scrutiny Committee is examining the Clinical Commissioning Groups’ proposals to cut hospital services (including the whole of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary acute and emergency services) and replace them with “Care Closer to Home”.
They want to hear from the public and have arranged two “drop-in” sessions so that people can discuss the proposals and share their views with Councillors, one to one. Continue reading
At the shambolic Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) meeting on 29th January, the Chair Cllr Elizabeth Smaje said that p255 of the Pre Consultation Business Case refers to a journey time assessment study and the JHSC will have a meeting about that and would like that study to be made available asap to JHSC.
This study is the Clinical Commissioning Groups’ travel impact analysis of their proposal to close one of our A&Es.
Since 4th February, I have repeatedly asked Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group for this document – so far to no avail. Update 26.2.16 – the CCGs have now made public their travel impact analysis. Continue reading
Terry Hallworth reports on the Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Governing Body meeting on 10th February
Update to Terry’s report
On 11th February Richard Dunne, Kirklees Scrutiny Officer, emailed that the draft Consultation Document and Questionaire will be publicly available on the Kirklees Council’s Joint Health Scrutiny Committee Webpage on 12th February (not the 15th as Greater Huddersfield CCG reported), along with the Agenda.
If you want to address the JHSC, tell Richard Dunne and he will put your name of the list of deputations. Further info from Richard Dunne is that the consultation will not proceed until this meeting has taken place.
The CCGs will be releasing the final draft of the Consultation Document on 12th February.
The CCGs and Joint Health Scrutiny Committee will have a public Scrutiny meeting on the 22 Feb, in the Council Chamber at Halifax Town Hall at 3.45pm
The Governing BodyChair, Dr Ollerton, and Carol McKenna, the CCG’s Chief Officer, will then sign off the document. That seems to presume no alterations will be necessary.
Consultation will then start on 27th Feb and will be for 14 weeks Continue reading
At the Kafka-esque Scrutiny meeting on 29th January, the Clinical Commissioning Groups’ monkey business meant that there was no consultation document on the hospital cuts for Calderdale and Kirklees Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) members to scrutinise.
Today (4th February), the CCGs have sent JHSC members the full consultation documents, with a message that the documents are going to be signed off tomorrow and Councillors need to send any comments today! Continue reading
At the 21 October Joint Health Scrutiny Committee meeting, Councillors tried to find out what the NHS competition enforcer, Monitor, actually meant by stating that the hospitals Trust needs to:
“maximise the value of the Calderdale Royal Hospital (CRH) PFI contract”.
As a result of the government trying to force hospitals into making massive “efficiency” cuts, that were impossible to carry out because this would have endangered patient safety, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) is one of scores of Trusts across the country that are now in deficit and under Monitor’s special measures.
Calderdale Councillor Martin Burton asked how the Trust could maximise the value of the CRH PFI contract. It was like trying to get blood from a stone. Continue reading
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
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?
Anyone who wants to find out about the sell off of our NHS, and understand how this is going to affect patient care, has their work cut out as the plot thickens around the £238m Huddersfield and North Kirklees contract for Care Closer To Home.
This contract is to take services out of the hospital and integrate them into community health and social care services for chronically ill and frail elderly people, with the aim of cutting acute and A&E hospital admissions and services. This is in order to cut NHS spending. Otherwise a £22bn NHS funding gap is predicted to open up by 2020.
The award of the contract has been at a standstill for a month. Yesterday the Health Service Journal reported that the massive contract has gone to a consortium led by Locala, the community health company that was set up in 2010 with staff and assets transferred from NHS Kirklees Primary Care Trust.
The organisations involved – the Clinical Commissioning Groups and Locala – maintain that the contract is still at a “standstill”.
Despite the confusion, Calderdale and Kirklees Councils’ Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC), which meets in Huddersfield Town Hall, 10.30 am on Monday 29th June, has no plans to ask Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Group what’s going on. Which rather gives the lie to their earlier promise that they would closely scrutinise this contract. Continue reading
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
Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaign is calling on Calderdale and Kirklees Councillors to do their job of protecting our local NHS from damage.
If you want your Councillors to do their job of protecting our local NHS, please consider getting in touch with them to tell them about this. On this webpage you’ll find template emails to send to Councillors as well as live links to Councillors’ email addresses.
Councillors have the power – and the duty to use that power – to: