Tag Archives: Calderdale Royal Hospital

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

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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 →

Barcoding patients at heart of hospital contract row

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The contract for Calderdale Royal Hospital services, which should have started on 1 April 2015, is still not signed and on 24th July both parties entered arbitration with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDAR) as mediator. The outcome is not yet public knowledge – but contract negotiations were still continuing on 4th August.

Problems with the contract from the Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG’s) point of view were discussed at the June 11th Calderdale CCG Governing Body Meeting, while the hospital Trust’s 28th July Board meeting papers show some of their side of the conflict.

The Trust are holding out for a Payments by Results contract, which Dr Matt Walsh told the CCG Governing Body “is not the CCG’s preference”. Until now, the contract between the CCG and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT)  has been a block activity contract, where the CCG pays for a set amount of clinical activity.

The barcoded patient Continue reading →

MP says future of Calderdale Royal Hospital is a “moveable feast” now it’s in special measures

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The future of Calderdale Royal Hospital is a “moveable feast” since Monitor has put it into special measures as a result of its deficit, Craig Whittaker MP said at his open surgery in Mytholmroyd on Saturday 18th July.

Monitor is the organisation charged with enforcing market competition in the NHS. Its boss David Bennett (previously a Senior Partner at McKinsey, the management consultancy company that’s made a killing out of the corporate capture of the NHS under both the New Labour and Coalition governments) recently warned that if NHS Foundation Trusts don’t bring down their deficits, they will lose their freedom to decide their own strategy and the way they run their services. Continue reading →

Freedom of Information docs show no A&E as we know it for both Halifax and Huddersfield

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A couple of documents Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has sent me in response to a Freedom of Information indicate that Calderdale and Huddersfield will not have an A&E service as we know it.

Instead, one of the documents shows that Calderdale CCG and Greater Huddersfield CCG  intend to replace Calderdale and Huddersfield A&Es with 3 Urgent Care Centres (also known as Minor Injuries Units) plus a unified Emergency Care Centre on one of the hospital sites. An Emergency Care Centre is not a full, blue light A&E like we currently have at both Calderdale Royal Hospital and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

Continue reading →

Monitor boss threatens deficit-ridden NHS hospitals with cuts to services and takeover into hospital chains

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The NHS competition enforcer David Bennett has told NHS Foundation Trusts that if they don’t bring down their deficits, they will lose their freedom to decide their own strategy and the way they run their services. This includes the power to retain their surpluses and borrow to invest in services for patients.

The 152 foundation trusts together face a £1bn deficit this year, but the government has decided this is “unaffordable”.

Austerity punishing poor for mistakes of rich

David Bennett, the Monitor boss, told NHS finance directors they have to bring this deficit down by speeding up productivity improvements and working in new ways.

Continue reading →

Hospital bosses’ “irresponsible” acceptance of £22bn efficiency cuts will harm patient care

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The Secretary of Calderdale NHS 38 Degrees campaign group has slammed a statement by Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals trust’s Chief Executive and other hospital bosses across England, that they’ll accept the government’s proposed £22bn efficiency cuts in exchange for the Prime Minister’s backing for rapid hospital cuts and closures, and funding for “new models of care”.

Among these new models of care are Calderdale’s “Care Closer to Home” scheme, which aims to cut acute and emergency hospital services by taking services for frail elderly and chronically ill patients out of Calderdale Royal Hospital and putting them into the “community”.

Owen Williams, Chief Exec of Calderdale & Huddersfield hospitals Trust, recently co-signed an NHS Confederation letter to the Prime Minister where NHS bosses accepted the government’s £22bn “efficiency” cuts programme for the NHS, while calling on the new Conservative government to honour its manifesto promise of an £8bn extra funding/year to carry out the big changes identified in NHS England’s 5 Year Forward View, plus funding for “transformation” and social care. Continue reading →

All you need is love – come on a Valentine’s date with Calderdale Royal Hospital

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As part of a nationwide Call 999 for the NHS Day of Action, Halifax mum Katherine Horner is inviting everyone to a Valentine’s Day NHS love in outside Calderdale Royal Hospital on the main Halifax to Huddersfield road from 10am to midday.

Please bring paper lovehearts and messages of support for Calderdale Royal Hospital NHS staff, who are struggling to keep patient care from suffering from the cuts and sell offs that have so badly destabilised our hospitals Trust. Continue reading →

Halifax Tory Parliamentary Candidate’s unfounded “good news” claim that hospitals shake-up is off

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Phillip Allott, Tory Parliamentary Candidate for Halifax, has sent Halifax voters a letter containing the unfounded claim that Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group has rejected the hospitals Trust proposal to turn one of our hospitals into a small planned care hospital with a Minor Injuries Unit and the other into a specialised acute hospital with an A&E Department.

Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s Governing Body Chair, Dr Alan Brook, told the 30th October 2014 Calderdale Health and Wellbeing Board that the CCG had decided not to consult the public about proposals in the hospital Trust’s Outline Business Case – because “it needs more work”.

But the CCG has at no time said that this means it has rejected the Trust’s proposals. Continue reading →

NHS bosses’ failure to consult on proposed hospital cuts and A&E closure is not in the public interest

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A Calder Valley member of the public who was confused by Craig Whittaker’s recent comments on her facebook page about the proposed NHS shake up in Calderdale and Huddersfield asked Plain Speaker for clarification about the following issues.

Here is the Plain Speaker view. Just to be clear, the reporter Jenny Shepherd is also the Green Parliamentary Candidate for Calder Valley Continue reading →

Calderdale Royal Hospital’s future as small planned care clinic plus Care Home and Hospice

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The hospitals Trust has finally made public their Outline Business Case (OBC) for the shake up of hospital and community NHS services in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.

The OBC comes down on the side of making Calderdale Royal Hospital the small planned care hospital, carrying out planned treatments like hip or knee operations, with only 85 of its current 350 beds in use and no A&E, just a Minor Injuries Unit that would see around 22,500 patients a year.

24/7 acute and emergency care would be at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. This would include trauma, major surgery, crticial care, acute & specialist medicine, inpatient paediatric services and complex maternity services.

In addition to minor injuries units, the OBC says both hospitals would provide outpatient care for children and adults, midwifery-led maternity units and specialist psychiatric liaison services.

The OBC sees a possible future for the “redundant” space in the rest of CRH as a care home and hospice, and says

“There is potential to link up with other Care Home or Hospice providers” (p141)

Continue reading →