Tag Archives: Outline Business Case

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)

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Hospitals Trust’s commercial interests block FOI request for health service shake-up Outline Business Case

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The Hospitals Trust has just refused Plain Speaker’s Freedom of Information request to see the Trust’s Outline Business Case for the “Right Care Right Time Right Place” shake up of health and social care services. This is the document that the Clinical Commissioning Groups will consider and then consult the public about, if they decide to accept the Outline Business Case.

If the public can’t see the Outline Business Case, how can we know what we think about it?

I am asking the Trust to review their refusal. Continue reading →

Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS shake up questionnaire – have you filled it in?

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This is my response to Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group’s questionnaire about the future of hospital and community health and social care services in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield. Have you completed yours? You can download the questionnaire here . You’ll find it’s on page 12 of that pdf leaflet “The future of hospital and community services – Get involved and have your say.” Because it’s a pdf download, if you want to word process your reply, rather than write it by hand, you’ll need to copy the .pdf questionnaire form and save it as a .doc file or whatever word processing programme you use. If you’d like to put your reply on Plain Speaker, please send it in or post it to 19 Unity Street, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8HQ.

My response is here:

I accuse Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group of misleading the public. Imo they are presenting government plans to covertly privatise the NHS as if they are local doctors’ and nurses’ ideas for improving patient care and saving money for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS. There is no reliable evidence that their proposals improve patient care and people’s health or that they cut costs.

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Moving care from hospitals to the community – an NHS privatisation wolf in sheep’s patient-centric clothing

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There is a public outcry in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield about cost-cutting proposals to close and curtail acute and emergency hospital services and replace them with cheaper, integrated health and social care in the community (whatever that might turn out to be, because it isn’t at all clear).

People worry  that, having downgraded the massively expensive Private Finance Initiative-funded Calderdale Royal Hospital to a small, planned care clinic with a minor injuries unit, the hospitals Trust would use the remaining three quarters of the hospital for private patients. Continue reading →