Tag Archives: Calderdale CCG

“Serious risk” identified in Calderdale NHS commissioning groups’s relationship with regional Support Unit

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First posted on 21 November, this article is now updated to include a reply from Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s Chief Finance Officer and a small amount of information from West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit.

“Serious risk” is the highest category of risk in the NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s risk register.

This is the level of risk that the Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCCG) has identified in its relationship with the organisation that’s meant to be supporting it – the West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit (WSYBCSU).
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National crisis in A&E is being felt in Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals

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At its meeting on Thursday 14th November, Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s Governing Body faced questions from the public about A&E.

Presenting his Report, the Chief Officer, Dr Matt Walsh, said that the national crisis in Accident and Emergency (A&E) is being felt in the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT).
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NHS England knows nothing of Care UK contracts for Todmorden and Halifax walk in health centres

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NHS England says it does not have information about the Care UK contracts for Todmorden and Halifax Walk In Health Centres.

When I put in a Freedom of Information request to Calderdale CCG last July, they passed much of it on to NHS England. This was because Calderdale CCG had inherited the Care UK contracts from the Calderdale Primary Care Trust but, unaccountably, didn’t have information about them and thought that NHS England would know.

NHS England has now replied that they too know nothing about the Care UK Contracts for the Tod and Halifax Walk in Health Centres, and has suggested that I contact the legacy team at the Department of Health.
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Todmorden and Halifax walk in centres – Freedom of Information reply

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At the end of July Upper Calder Valley Plain Speaker asked the question, What next for privatised walk-in GP centres in Tod and Halifax?

On behalf of NHS Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), West and South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Commissioning Support Unit has now replied to my Freedom of Information request about the saga with Care UK over the contract to run the two privatised GP walk-in centres.
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NHS land grab by private companies slices further into Calderdale

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Calderdale NHS has stumbled further down the stealth privatisation road by awarding a 12 month, £364K contract for telehealth and telecare to Tunstall Healthcare, a company largely owned by vulture fund Charterhouse Capital Partners.

Private equity company Bridgepoint sold Tunstall to Charterhouse in 2008 for more than double the £225m it paid for it in 2005. Bridgepoint, which acquired Care UK  in early 2010 for £423m, retains a minority share in Tunstall.
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How Care UK and Virgin Care gained contracts to run NHS GP services in Calderdale

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How did Care UK and Virgin Care end up with contracts to run GP services in Calderdale?  And after Calderdale CCG completes its review of  GP services and community unplanned care (ie urgent care that isn’t A&E), how many more privatised GP services are we going to end up with?
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Stealth privatisation – Virgin Care profits from Calderdale NHS

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Not that you’d realise it from outward appearances, but Richard Branson’s private health care company Virgin Care has contracts with Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group to run a  dermatology clinic in Halifax, as well as three General Practice centres that go under the name of Meadow Dale Group Practice – one in Elland, one in Ovenden and one in Sowerby Bridge.
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Why is Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group buying NHS care from tax avoiders Care UK and Spire Healthcare?

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An example of the increasingly intimate merger of government and corporate interests, former New Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn recently joined Price Waterhouse Coopers to head up a board overseeing the consultancy and accountancy giant’s private health care business, which is moving in on the NHS now that the Health and Social Care Act is in place.

Milburn is also chairman of the European Advisory Board of Bridgepoint Capital, the vulture fund investors behind Care UK, which runs the Todmorden and Halifax walk in health centres and also provides diagnostic services for Calderdale NHS.
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Care UK – the private company running Tod and Halifax Walk In Health Centres

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Thanks to local campaigning, the two GP centres run by Care UK (one in Todmorden and one in Halifax) will remain open until September, when Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) aims to have completed its review of how to provide primary and community unplanned health care (ie urgent care that isn’t A& E).

Care UK has been at the front of the queue for NHS privatisations. It was acquired by vulture fund company Bridgepoint in 2010, and according to Corporate Watch,

“carries huge debt, avoids tax, siphons money off to its private equity owners, and has been accused of negligence and abuse.”

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Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group meeting 10th May

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This was the first Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCCG) meeting after the  House of Lords approved the NHS ‘section 75’ regulations on 24th April.  These hotly-opposed regulations open up the NHS to far more private sector competition. Caroline Molloy, writing on the Open Democracy website, states that

“overturning the NHS Privatisation Regulations was always going to be tough. Nonetheless, the spectacle of Lords with private healthcare interests, voting them through, raises fundamental questions about our democracy.” 

Now that these new NHS privatisation regulations are law, how can local campaigners work effectively to keep our NHS public? Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS Group is looking for ways to work with Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to protect Calderdale NHS from privatisation. This report is based on notes from Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS Group.
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