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
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)
At Calderdale HWB Board on 30 October 2014, Jen Mulcahy, the Commissioning Support Unit Programme Manager for Right Care Right Place Right Time, gave an update on the Right Care Right Place Right Time NHS shake up in Calderdale and Greater Huddersfield.
She said this was being carried out through taking forward:
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
The first NHS debate between Calder Valley parliamentary hopefuls and the current MP Craig Whitaker ran along familiar lines. The politicians repeated what they have already said several times in other situations.
There were only two unexpected comments.
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
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.”
Andrew Simpson, Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) Trust’s Head of A&E Operations for Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees, told a Calderdale Council “People’s Commission” meeting yesterday that Calderdale Royal Hospital is the destination of 95% of ambulance trips in Calderdale.
But in response to a question from a member of Calderdale 38 Degrees NHS campaign, he could not say if information had been collected about the extra number of ambulances and staff that would be needed if Halifax A&E closed – creating longer traveling times – and how much that would cost.
NHS Commissioners’ plans to make changes to community health and social care without public consultation have put both the Ambulance and the Hospitals Trusts on the back foot. Continue reading
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
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