Tag Archives: Care Closer to Home

Hospital cuts and review of whole local NHS as “perfect storm” of increasing financial pressures batters our hospitals

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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 →

Calderdale NHS bosses’ new plan for August decision on community health services sell off – Campaigners demand public consultation now

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Yesterday a number of Save Calderdale Royal Hospital campaigners attended Calderdale Council’s Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel, to find out what Calderdale NHS commissioners are planning for Phase 1 of the Right Care Right Place Right Time NHS shake up (which they’ve re-branded as Care Closer to Home.)

After the meeting, those of us who attended were clear that the Scrutiny Panel must use its powers now to stop the the implementation of Phase 1 Care Closer to Home and tell the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to formally consult the public on the Care Closer to Home proposals.

This is what happened Continue reading →

Calderdale and Kirklees Councils drag their feet about whether NHS bosses’ plans are fit for purpose

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On 22nd September 2014, Calderdale and Kirklees Councils’ Joint Health Scrutiny Committee (JHSC) started scrutinising the local NHS commissioners’ proposals for chopping and changing hospital and community based health services. These proposals are known as Right Care Right Place Right Time.

The JHSC has decided that, should the options outlined in the Right Care Right Place Right Time Strategic Outline Case be developed into formal proposals, they would constitute a substantial development and variation to the health service.

The JHSC has a duty to scrutinise such substantial proposals and their impact on the people of Calderdale and Huddersfield, by requiring local NHS bodies to consult with them. Continue reading →

NHS privatisation quango’s secret meeting about recommissioning NHS community care contracts worth £hundreds of millions

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The Board of  Monitor (the Ofgem of the NHS, ie the quango that promotes “competition” in the NHS “market”) met on 29th October to deliberate in secret about re-commissioning NHS community services like Locala’s in Kirklees.

Agenda item 7 asked the Monitor Board to note, in secret, “significant developments with regard to the work of the Co-operation and Competition directorate.”

They say if the public knew what the directorate had found, this would “inhibit the free frank disclosure of information.” Continue reading →

GPs’ conflicts of interest over community health care contracts – N.Kirklees GP Commissioners approve GPs’ request for £0.5m

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GPs’ Conflict of interest was an issue at the 1st October meeting of N.Kirklees Clinical Commissioning Group (NKCCG) Governing Body meeting, when the Governing Body approved its own member GPs’ Business Cases for:

  • a £514,049 12 month pilot (with scope for a 3 year roll out) to deliver the first wave of ‘Care Closer to Home’, through GP-led Care Coordination
  • a Beyond Over 75 Enhanced Service, aimed at keeping over 75s out of hospital through early identification of health and social care issues

Continue reading →

Rhubarb rhubarb for two hours as Calderdale NHS commissioners outwit Councillors’ scrutiny of shake-up plans

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A dismayed member of the public who attended the 17th September Scrutiny Panel meeting, where Councillors allowed themselves to be outwitted over Calderdale NHS commissioners’ plans to delay public consultation on the NHS shake-up, said,

“They might as well have been saying rhubarb rhubarb for two hours, for all the use that meeting was.”

There is an overview report of the meeting here.

For anyone who has the stomach for rhubarb, here is a more verbatim account. It covers

  • The CCG’s evasiveness about whether it will dump the hospitals Trust as the provider of existing community health services, and switch to buying them from private companies or 3rd sector/voluntary organisations.
  • The Scrutiny Panel’s failure to use its power to decide whether the CCG’s plan to re-specify and re-purchase existing community health services by the end of this year would significantly change existing NHS services in Calderdale and so require public consultation.
  • The timeframe for costing Phase 2 community health services, which will happen over the next 3 months. Phase 2 would involve taking services for frail elderly people with multiple illnesses out of hospital and into the community or people’s homes.

Continue reading →

NHS commissioners hoodwink Council Scrutiny Panel over setting up Care Closer to Home without public consultation

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Yesterday Calderdale Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel members failed to use their power to decide whether the Calderdale NHS Commissioners need to consult the public about the new community health care system they are in the process of setting up.

Instead they have given the nod to the CCG to go ahead with their plans and report back to the Scrutiny Panel later.

Members of the public said they had now lost faith in the Scrutiny Panel’s ability or willingness to use its powers to protect the NHS in Calderdale.

One member of the public said,

“They might as well have been saying rhubarb rhubarb for two hours, for all the use that meeting was.”

Continue reading →

Calderdale NHS Bosses’ AGM whitewash

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Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group – the organisation that decides what NHS services people in Calderdale have access to, and which organisations provide them – gave a highly selective version of events at its first AGM, held at the Threeways centre in Ovenden yesterday.

The Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt has told NHS clinical staff that they owe a duty of candour to their patients and must tell them the truth.

Surely this duty applies to NHS commissioners as well?

Calderdale CCG failed this test at its AGM.

Airbrushed out – massive public opposition to planned hospital cuts never happened Continue reading →

#Calderdale Council Health Scrutiny Panel in private unscheduled meeting this evening

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In response to a question from Plain Speaker, the Chair of Calderdale Council’s Adults Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel has confirmed that the Panel is to hold a private meeting on Monday 1st September at 6pm in Halifax Town Hall.

The meeting is not on the official Council calendar, nor on the printed sheet which was issued on 28 August listing amendments to committees for the period 1 September to 1 October.

Neither the Council’s Democratic Services Manager, other Councillors who are not on the Scrutiny Panel, nor the public had been told about it. Continue reading →

Calderdale Council Scrutiny Panel steps up to a democratic investigation of NHS shake up plans

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We have some good news, thanks to the 118 members of the public who signed Plain Speaker’s petition to the Scrutiny Panel, to the Scrutiny Panel themselves, and to Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS Campaign Group, Calderdale Trades Council and other members of the public who lobbied the Scrutiny Panel meetings. Continue reading →