Category: NHS
Resist Hinchingbrooke Hospital acquisition by Peterborough and Stamford NHS Foundation Trust
Some years ago in a series of lectures I gave, I said that if the NHS were a patient, it would be locked up in a secure unit, to prevent it from damaging itself further with self-inflicted wounds.
It seems in the intervening years, nothing has changed.
The current proposed acquisition of Hinchingbrooke Hospital by Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, needs to be resisted by anyone who wishes to see Hinchingbrooke retained as a clinically sustainable and financially viable district general hospital, publicly provided, publicly funded and publicly accountable.
Accountability has never been a strong point of NHS management. For instance the two previous chairmen of what was the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority have never been held to account for the financial basket case they permitted Hinchingbrooke Hospital to become between 2006 and 2010. Neither were they asked to explain what led to the privatised fiasco of the Circle Contract. More recently is the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group’s (C&PCCG) abysmal handling of the Older People’s and Adult Community Services Contract (value £725Million) which was terminated in December 2015, only a few months after the contract was awarded.
To-date, no one has been held accountable for this debacle. The subsequent internal audit by the West Midland Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust found that the Pre-Qualification Process and contract award carried out by C&PCCG was deficient in the extreme. They also apparently found the C&PCCG did not carry out a sufficient due diligence test on the selected provider before awarding the contract.
Once again, our taxpayer’s money has been wasted by another incompetent NHS organisation. Now it is the very same commissioning group together with the Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals Foundation Trust (PSHFT) and its’ horrific PFI contract debt, that is now pressing together with NHS England to force through the acquisition of Hinchingbrooke Hospital by Peterborough. They are seeking to recoup some of the money they have wasted on their ill-conceived contracts at the expense of our beloved Hinchingbrooke Hospital and to the detriment of Huntingdonshire residents and others within the Hinchingbrooke Hospital catchment area.
To ensure that the Hinchingbrooke non-executive board may be held accountable for any future decisions regarding our highly regarded local hospital, it is essential that the existing board is changed with immediate effect as four of its current members have been parachuted in from outside the area, and are making decisions about Hinchingbrooke which fly in the face of the needs of the local population. We need to have a board that is made up of Huntingdonshire residents with appropriate skill sets, and one that is representative of the local population. This would be in line with the Government’s commitment to devolve power to local communities, and is supported by the Hands-Off Hinchingbrooke Campaigners too.
Huntingdonshire has previously demonstrated that when it was controlling its own health budget, as it did with Huntingdonshire Primary Care Trust (2001-2006), it was able to sustain a financially viable and clinically sustainable health system, including Hinchingbrooke Hospital. The hospital only ran into financial trouble in 2006 due the then Strategic Health Authority (SHA) failing to ensure a due diligence audit was carried out before the Diagnostic and Treatment Centre was built under a PFI project. Since that time, the hospital has been a puppet of both the SHA and its subsequent successor paymasters, the Trust Development Authority (TDA) (now the NHS Improvement Commission) and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group.
The health care budget for Huntingdonshire should be returned to a new Huntingdonshire health body, possibly a Huntingdon Community Health Trust (HCHT). Such a proposition will, of course, be resisted fiercely by the existing NHS establishment, but given their abysmal track record both nationally and locally, we have nothing to fear by challenging the existing status quo. A new Huntingdonshire Community Health Trust with the right people in charge and we have such people here in Huntingdonshire and properly funded, can create a health care model of excellence.
Ten Minute Rule Bill – NHS Reinstatement Bill
On Wednesday, 13th July 2016, immediately after Prime Minister’s Questions around 12.30 p.m, Margaret Greenwood, MP for Wirral West, will try to table the NHS Reinstatement Bill as a cross-party Ten Minute Rule Bill
She will have 10 minutes to speak in favour of the Bill, one other MP can speak for 10 minutes against it, and then it will be put to the vote. If the vote is won, it will go forward for a second reading. It will be behind many other Bills and so will not become law in this session of Parliament – but it will help in building support outside Parliament and in keeping the pressure on MPs.
The privatisation of the NHS in England will continue until we have a law to stop it, so please ask your MP for them attend the debate and to support the Bill.
NB: If your MP doesn’t to support this Bill on the usual grounds that the 2014 Commonwealth Fund found that the NHS was the most effective and efficient health service in the world – that data is almost all from before the stealth-privatising 2012 Health and Social Care Act took effect in 2013.
NHS cuts, privatisation and fragmentation continue. New legislation is needed to stop and reverse the damage
These cuts and changes are being carried out across England under Simon Stevens’ 5 Year Forward View. Where they are further advanced, they are bringing disaster in their wake.
The NHS in England is being dismantled. Only a change to the law can stop the damage.
Now more than ever.
To reverse the damage, the NHS must be reinstated in a civilised form that restores it to full public ownership, management and funding, with a duty on the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive, universal health service that is free at the point of need and based on patients’ clinical needs.
The BMA reiterates its overwhelming support for the Bill
On Thursday 23rd June 2016, the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly to continue supporting the Bill. You can watch the debate at its Annual Representative Meeting here (click on ‘Motions Arising From ARM’ in the right hand box, it will start at at 2 hrs 47 mins)
Therefore we urge you to contact your MP and ask them to attend the House of Commons debate on 13th July and support the Bill so it can go forward to a second reading. Please tell them why this is important to you.
There is more related information from the NHS Reinstatement Bill Campaign Group here; and here the Bill’s main author, Professor Allyson Pollock, analyses the NHS crisis and appropriate responses to it.
Tell your local press and MP
Please use the local press letter and edit to send to your local press and MP.
NHS Bill Letter guide for public and suggested draft local press letter
If you work in the NHS we have a letter guide NHS employees and suggested draft local press letter for NHS employees