Issue: 67

21 May 2018

 

This occasional newsletter is researched, written and edited by a group of concerned residents in Ealing, West London who want to preserve our NHS. We view the wholesale engagement of private, for-profit healthcare service suppliers as unnecessary, profligate and dangerous. Increased financial funding is what is needed in our NHS – not financial cuts, closure of vital services or privatisation.

 

This Newsletter is Now Five Years’ Old!

In May 2013 we produced the first ‘Our NHS in Crisis’ newsletter. We announced that in March 2013 the Secretary of State had agreed to refer the decision to close 4 of the 9 A&E departments in NHS NW London. He then referred the matter to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel IRP). The IRP has come and gone but only 2 A&Es were closed – with disastrous results.

 

We also announced a 50% shortfall in trainee doctors and consultants. No wonder NHS Trusts have 100s of unfilled vacancies

 

Is there a Crisis in Primary Care Commissioning in Ealing?

Three meetings in public were scheduled for the Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group (ECCG) Primary Care Commissioning Committee (PCCC) in March, April and May 2018. Only one of them took place. The last one – on 9 May 2018 – was cancelled at very short notice.

 

At the 14 February 2018 ECCG PCCC meeting in public, only three ‘Voting Members’ turned up. The 100+ pages of ‘The Ealing Standard’ (TES) – a newish standard for ECCG Ealing GPs – was still with ECCG lawyers. Launched in October 2017, the TES was/is still work in progress. Dementia and MSK ‘templates’ were still ‘under development’ and ‘demand and capacity/access’ was unresolved.

 

We have been told ad nauseam for over five years now that CCGS are ‘GP-led’. Now that ECCG actually commissions GP services in Ealing, is the blindingly obvious conflict of interest beginning to cause turmoil which the ECCG does not want to be aired in public?

 

The cancelled ECCG PCCC meeting of 9 May 2018 has been completely eradicated from the ECCG web site.

 

‘History is a set of lies agreed upon’

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769 – 1821

 

Correction!

GP Lists and Population Figures in England

In my last newsletter I quoted the UK population figure as the population of England. Sorry for the error. The two figures I wanted to compare are/were the number of patients registered with GPs in England (April 2018) – 59,039,595 and number of residents in England (2017) 54,990,000.

Questions that arise:  

1. Why are there over four million people ostensibly registered at more than one GP surgery?
2. Are there people registered at GP surgeries who have not been counted as residents?
3. How long does it take for a patient to switch from one GP surgery to another and for that information to be transmitted to NHSE?
4. One does wonder whether there might be any deceased patients on some GP surgery lists.  
5. When patients leave England maybe they don’t tell their GPs and their names remain on GP lists.

 

And, in Ealing

Patients registered at the 76 GP surgeries in Ealing: 437,126 (NHS Digital, 1 April, 2018)

Estimated population of Ealing in 2018: 346,319 (DCLG).

 

The difference between these two figures is a mind bending 90,807 patients.

My friend in the North tells me that in Greater Manchester (GM) there are 10% more patients registered in GP surgeries than the GM population. However in Ealing it’s a staggering 26.2%. On the face of it some serious questions need to be asked about the veracity of GP surgery patient lists in Ealing.

 

Judicial Reviews (JRs)

+ 999callforNHS – Accountable Care Organisations, Whole Population Budgets.

After appearance in Court in Leeds on 24 April 2018, the judge ruled against the applicants, who now have until 5 June 2018 to respond, if they so wish..  

+ JR4NHS – Accountable Care Organisations, lack of public consultation and lack of Parliamentary scrutiny and legislation.

In Court in London for JR on 23 and 24 May 2018. Supporters are meeting at 9:00am outside the Law Courts on 23 May 2018.

+ Dorset – Prevent the downgrading of Poole A&E, the closure of Poole Maternity, the closure of Acute beds and the closure of Community beds in 5 of 13 Dorset locations.

Full JR hearing on 17 and 18 July 2018. www.crowdjustice.com to donate money.

+ Barnsley and Rotherham – Prevent the closure of emergency stroke services at both hospitals. www.crowdjustice.com to donate money.

+Huddersfield – Prevent the closure of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI). On 11 May Jeremy Hunt MP – following a local Independent Reconfiguration Panel report – stated the downgrade of HRI would not be in the interests of local people. He urged the CCG, Scrutiny, NHSI and NHSE to formulate new proposals

Full three day JR hearing in Leeds starting on 12 June 2018.

 

127 of the 137 Acute Hospital Trusts in England Enjoy Suspicious, Simultaneous Uplifts in A&E Performance

Colin Standfield, a medical researcher in Ealing, has been monitoring and analysing NHS Acute Hospital A&E performance for over five years. In May 2018, he noted that between March 2018 and April 2018 there have been unprecedented and simultaneous uplifts in A&E attendances at 92% of NHS Acute hospitals. This applied to ‘Type1’ (the most seriously ill/injured) and to ‘All’ categories. For this to happen simultaneously and similarly in all these hospitals is a statistical phenomenon. Colin has never before detected such an orchestrated uplift between two successive sets of data.

 

One wonders whether there has been/is a systematic change in the way attendances and admissions are being recorded. A cynic might suggest that the data collection is being ‘coached’ or ‘fudged’.

 

UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Raises Concerns Yet Again About the Accuracy of A&E Waiting Time Statistics

In May 2018 ‘Health Service Journal’ (HSJ) revealed that UKSA has expressed its concerns to NHSE and NHSI that ‘A&E data collection guidance, based on agreed principles, has still not been published’. UKSA first raised concerns about the accuracy of NHS A&E statistics in January 2018.

 

HSJ quotes concerns from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM) and from the Society of Acute Medicine about the accuracy, consistency and timeliness of NHS A&E performance data. The RCEM emphasised that the NHS must make a clear distinction to the public about the difference between overall A&E performance and the performance of Type 1(seriously ill/injured) emergency departments.

 

GP Numbers in England Are Declining

March 2015: 35,516

March 2018: 34,434

Over 1,000 GPs have been lost over the last three years. In June, 2015 Health supremo Jeremy Hunt MP said he wanted 5,000 more GPs by 2020. Well that target just went up to over 6,000 and there are just less than 20 months to go to meet it.

 

Cancer Referrals by GPs Being Refused, Downgraded as ‘Less Urgent’ or Delayed

‘GP Online’ revealed in April 2018 that from an admittedly small sample of 507 GPs, 25% had cancer referrals refused and 36% had cancer referrals downgraded as ‘less urgent’. Overall 46% of the GPs had cancer referrals bounced back or downgraded – and of these 25% of the patients involved did have cancer.

 

If this is the reality of the cancer referrals ‘pathway’ one seriously worries about referrals for the much less esteemed, less funded mental health referral pathway?

 

Almost One Third of all Mental Health Referrals For Younger Children by GPs Were Refused 2014/15 to 2017/18

Response to an NSPCC Freedom of Information request has revealed this refusal rate over the last three years. Allied to this younger peoples’ mental health GP referrals were 25,140 in 2014/15 and rose to 34,751 in 2017/18.

 

Hammersmith & Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) Expects £18 Million Bail Out From NHSE for 24,000 New Patients at Dr Jefferies GP Surgery in Fulham

‘GP Online’ reports that Dr Jefferies GP surgery in Fulham has submitted a rather large bill to its CCG for 24,000 new patients. These patients have signed up for the surgery’s ‘GP at Hand’ service. This service offers (for those patients accepted) a rapid Smartphone based consultation. Upon signing up for the service registration at their ‘old’ GP surgery is apparently cancelled, and they go onto the very long Dr Jefferies list.

 

If you are pregnant, have cancer or are mentally ill you are unlikely to be accepted as a GP at Hand patient. There are more patients in the 20 to 29 year old age group registered than in any other age group.

 

Babylon, GP at Hand’s owner, had plans to roll out the service to Birmingham and Manchester, but NHSE has objected. However it was NHSE which caused this financial and GP list disruption by agreeing to a six month trial of GP at Hand in January 2018 in Camden, Islington, Enfield and Barnet.

 

NHS Buckinghamshire CCG Forecasts £19 Million Deficit for 2017/18

In a wonderful example of ‘Yes Minister’ bureaucracy-speak, this £19 million deficit was apparently caused by ‘over performance’ and ‘under delivery’. Buckinghamshire CCG is one of six partners in the Buckinghamshire pioneer, ‘shadow’ Integrated Care System. Even as late as December 2017 (month 9) the CCG forecast was that there would be no year-end deficit.

 

Like the nine other pioneer, shadow NHS ICSs, no visible ICS progress is indicated on its web site. No ICS subject areas, no new ICS press releases and no new ICS events – on any of the ten ICS web sites.

 

Funding for Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships’ (STPs’) IT is Being Blocked

In February 2016, Jeremy Hunt MP announced a £1.8 billion fund to achieve a paperless’ NHS by 2020. It was part of an announcement of a £4.5 billion fund for technology within the NHS to be spent by 2021. Tens of millions have already been paid to 23 NHS Trusts. However the next wave of payments is allegedly to be paid to STPs. The pot of money is now referred to as the ‘provider digitalisation fund’. The fund was supposed to start dishing out cash in Autumn 2017, but this did not take place. On 1 March 2018, NHSE announced that £990 million would be allocated to digitalised providers. In late April 2018, NHSE retracted this figure.

 

The NHS and IT have a very chequered history. The National Programme for IT in the NHS was launched to great fanfare in 2002, and then dismantled in 2011. The losses are still being totalled up but in 2013 they had exceeded £10 billion making it the world’s most expensive civilian IT failure.

 

 

You can now read online our latest newsletter

We hope that some of you will be interested in our forthcoming Workshop later this month. Also in our Newsletter we have some startling stories on the difficulties patients have accessing their GPs and how the NHS now has one of the lowest numbers of doctors, nurses & beds the lowest for in Europe for beds plus details of our next Campaign Meeting and some upcoming events.Want to know more about what’s happening to our NHS?
Then why not come to our WORKSHOP on 30th May:

Some of the issues we will be discussing include – Is there money for the NHS or not?Could Richard Branson be running Ealing’s NHS? What will be left of Ealing Hospital if the cuts go through?This will be an interactive, fun and informative workshop with time for group discussions, quizzes and questions. Refreshments will also be provided. The Workshop kicks off at 7.30pm for about 2 hours in Northfields Community Centre.

If you would like to book a place – please click here and fill the form in (it’s free).

 

Campaign Meeting Tuesday 15th May- All welcome: 
We would love to see more people get involved, so new people are very welcome to our friendly meeting on the 15th at 7.30pm, Northfields Community Centre, 71a Northcroft Road, Ealing W13 9SS. Tea and Coffee provided.

GP’s getting harder to see – so how can they treat more people?
Ealing health bosses claim that far more people can be treated in the community, instead of hospitals, so they can cut Ealing Hospital. But the exact opposite is happening – GP services are getting ever harder to access as can be seen by a recent Report by the University of Leicester. They looked at the experiences of over 1 million patients in England. The number of patients who said they were able to get an appointment with their own family doctor fell by 27.5% between 2012 and 2017. The picture is no different here in Ealing as many of you will know when trying to get an appointment with your own GP.
More on this story here

 

The UK has one of lowest numbers of beds, doctors & nurses:

Stark new findings from top think-tank, The Kings Fund, has revealed that the NHS has among the lowest numbers of doctors, nurses and hospital beds per head of population in the western world.
Only Poland has fewer doctors and nurses than the UK, while only Canada, Denmark and Sweden have fewer hospital beds, and that Britain also falls short when it comes to scanners. These are just some of the reasons why we have to keep campaigning and demand proper funding for our NHS.
You can read more on this story here 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Launch Meeting for new Ealing Social Care Group:

A Meeting to set up an Ealing Social Care Action Group that can campaign for better social care for the residents of Ealing is to take place on Thursday 24th May from 2.00 – 4.15 pm in the Parish Hall of Christ the Saviour Church, New Broadway W5 2XA. Refreshments will be provided. It’s organised by the Seniors Action Group Ealing (SAGE) All are welcome to attend.

Come and join us at Hanwell Carnival – Saturday 16th June:It is Carnival time in Hanwell on the 16th June and Ealing Save Our NHS will once again be joining the fun. This year the 70th Birthday of our NHS is as our theme for the Procession and Stall in Elthorne Park. We would welcome more people to join us on the Procession(please contact Sarah Boston on 07752 685558 for more details) If you would like to help on our Stall in the Park then please contact Eve Turner on 07960 309457.

70th NHS Birthday Celebration and Demonstration – June 30th:
Ealing Save Our NHS will be meeting up at Ealing Broadway Station at 11.30pm to join in the celebration of our wonderful NHS. We will have placards and our banner but please bring your own if you want.

Join us for birthday cake, song and celebration on 5th July
On 5th July 1948 the NHS came in to being and we aim to celebrate it’s 70th year in style outside Ealing Hospital on 5th July from 12.00 – 2.00pm. There will be delicious cake, music and of course a few speeches so please put it in your diaries – more details to follow.

Best Regards

Eve Turner
Ealing Save Our NHS

 

Issue: 66

7 May 2018

 

This occasional newsletter is researched, written and edited by a group of concerned residents in Ealing, West London who want to preserve our NHS. We view the wholesale engagement of private, for-profit healthcare service suppliers as unnecessary, profligate and dangerous. Increased financial funding is what is needed in our NHS – not financial cuts, closure of vital services or privatisation.

 

Management Changes at NHS North West London (NWL)

Clare Parker resigned her job(s) in NHS NWL and has now departed. Up until 30 April 2018 she was one of the two Chief Officers for NHS North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups (actually running five of the eight constituent CCGs). She worked for NHS NWL for six years and in recent years has performed leading roles in the 2012 NHS NWL ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ (SaHF) project and the 2016 NHS NWL Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). A requisite component for the SaHF (and by implication the STP) was the Government’s acceptance of the ‘final’ December 2016 SaHF business case (ImBC SOC1) which asked for £513 million for building work. Nothing more of the ImBC SOC1 has been heard of since NHSE/NHSI (London) rejected it in September 2017.

 

Ms Parker courted controversy last year when she and Tracey Batten, then boss of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, went public in castigating Steve Cowan, the Leader of Hammersmith & Fulham Council. They claimed that Mr Cowan had been ‘inaccurate and misleading’ in his statements about the future of Charing Cross Hospital. Mr Cowan robustly defended his claim that Charing Cross Hospital was under threat of closure. Since then Ms Batten has resigned and returned to Australia, her country of origin.

 

A similar ‘leaving’ rumour is attaching itself to Rob Larkman who is currently Chief Officer of Brent CCG and is also running three of the eight NHS NWL CCGs. Apparently he is now also providing ‘provisional support’ until the new Accountable Officer for the eight CCGs takes over.

 

Of the five headline ‘promoters’ of the October 2016 NHS NWL STP, two of them have now resigned and a third is apparently on the way out. The two remaining NHS NWL STP heavyweights are Dr Mohini Parmar, Chair of Ealing CCG and STP leader, and Carolyn Downs, Chief Executive of Brent Council.

 

An astonishingly long, undated job description exists for ‘Accountable Officer: North West London Collaboration of CCGs’ It is 12 pages long and is the longest job description I have ever seen. A key ‘Main Duty’ is to create Accountable Care Systems (ACSs). This aspect rather dates the specification prior to February 2018, as it was in that month that NHS England annexed the term ACS and replaced it with the term ICS (Integrated Care System). Another interesting aspect of the job specification is the complete absence of any reference to the failing 2012 NHS NWL ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ (SaHF) project. One can then reliably conclude that NHS NWL has now officially closed down this unfunded, cost cutting programme.

 

The head-hunter Veredus is no longer advertising this job, so maybe the vacancy has been filled. The rumour is that the new NHS NWL Accountable Officer role has, allegedly, now been filled by Mr Mark Easton. (On the run-up to this appointment Ms Parker and Mr Larkman both publicly declined to apply for this new top job). Mr Easton has had quite a ‘mobile’ NHS career filling eight different roles in just 12 years. Given that Ms Parker’s total annual remuneration for being accountable for five CCGs was £230,000 to £235,000, no doubt the remuneration for being accountable for running eight CCGs will be significantly more.

 

Has the Integrated Care System (ICS) Bandwagon Come to a Complete Stop?

Where is the new legislation on ICS promised by the Government in February 2018? Where is the 12 week public consultation on ICS promised by the Government in February 2018? Why are the two pioneer NHSE ICS Vanguards at Dudley and Greater Manchester still ‘paused’?

 

The first of many care ‘transformation’ Judicial Reviews (JRs) kicked off in Leeds on 24 April 2018. This one challenges the legitimacy of NHS Accountable Care Organisations  (aka ICSs). The second ACO/ICS legitimacy challenging JR starts in Court on 23 and 24 May 2018. Further care transformation JRs are gestating at Barnsley and Rotherham, Dorset and Huddersfield.

 

According to NHS England the 10 Vanguard ICSs ‘are already assuming accountability for local operational and financial performance’. As from 1 April 2018 they are supposedly beginning ‘to gain financial flexibility and to use new tools for better understanding of local health data’. Well if this is the case they are all very shy about announcing this. In fact the last NHSE ICS news announcement is from February 2018 when ACSs were renamed ICSs.

 

‘Change but the name, and you are the subject of the story’

Horace  65BC – 8BC

 

UK Nears Bottom of List of 21 Developed Countries for Numbers of Doctors, Nurse and Hospital Beds

A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) places the UK amongst the lowest per capita number of doctors, nurses and hospital beds. Only Poland has fewer doctors and nurses than the UK. Only Canada, Denmark and Sweden have fewer hospital beds. In Germany there are 8.1 hospital beds/1,000 people – in  the UK it’s just 2.6.

 

Central and North West London NHS Trust (CNWL) Hired More Mangers in 2017 Than Any Other NHS Trust

In 2017 CNWL hired 253 people into management roles. In 2013 it hired just 93 of them. This information was derived from NHS Digital and analysed by the BBC in April 2018. It’s interesting to relate these figures to the planned staff reductions in the December 2016 NHS NWL Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). In 2017/18, 3,658 staff were to be ‘let go’. This included 1,293 Registered Nurses, Midwifery and Health Visitor staff.

 

Nationally since 2013, 16% more managers were hired compared to 8% more doctors and 2% more nurses. Between 2015 and 2017 there was no overall increase in hospital nurses throughout England. Out of the 1.21 million NHS staff around 32,000 are managers. NHS Improvement says that there are still ‘too few managers’. This statement is backed up with ‘..research consistently shows…’. It does make one wonder what research this is and how it was conducted, and just how many managers too many might be.

 

According to the ‘Daily Mail’, the starting salary for an NHS senior manager is £65,000.

 

‘Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get work done’.

Peter Drucker  1909 – 2005

 

£4.2 Million Capital Grant To Be Spent On 17 New Mental Health Beds for Young People in NHS North West London (NWL)

12 safe environment beds will be for 13 to 18 year olds suffering from severe mental health problems in Chelsea & Westminster Hospital. Five beds in Brent will be used by young people with learning difficulties, autistic spectrum disorders and experiencing mental health difficulties.

 

Sadly this £4.2 million capital grant is just a drop in the ocean. It cost over £230 million last year to run the West London Mental Health Trust, just one of the two mental health trusts in NWL.

 

It seems the cost for a mental health bed in NHS NWL is £247,000.

 

Population of England: 66,573,504 – Number of Residents Registered at GP Surgeries in England: 59,039,595

 

What could these figures mean?

1. There are 7,546,009 residents in England who are not registered at an NHS GP Surgery.
2. Attempts (through Sustainability and Transformation Plans) to provide integrated social care and healthcare will fail for over 7.5 million residents as they only ‘exist’ in the social care system.
3. In an Integrated Care System world, using Capitated/Whole Population Budgets, members of this 7.5 million unregistered healthcare population could be denied healthcare services on the grounds that they are not part of the defined healthcare patient population.

 

 

 

 

This informal and unauthorised guide has been assembled out of self-need by someone in West London who attends public care services’ meetings and attempts to read and understand NHS and Local Authority documents. I hope the reader finds it useful.

 

A&E Accident and Emergency Unit

The historic definition of an A&E unit is a hospital unit to which flashing blue light ambulances deliver patients in pain. These units have an Intensive Care Unit, ICU consultants, ICU beds, Emergency doctors, and are often supported by Urgent Care Centres. Such units no longer exist at Central Middlesex and Hammersmith Hospitals. Apparently by 2021 a historically defined A&E unit will no longer exist at Ealing Hospital.  

 

Academic Health Science Centre

This covers Imperial College and Imperial College Hospital Trust in West London and the specialist services in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital which provide heart, lung and cancer services

 

AC                  Accountable Officer

In NWL an Accountable Officer for the eight CCGs is currently being sought

 

ACP                Accountable Care Partnership

Fixed price, long term (10/15 years) contracts to deliver specific services to specific defined populations. Referred to in many October 2016 STPs. No ACPs had gone live by March 2018. As ‘Accountable Care’ has now been replaced with ‘Integrated Care’, one assumes ACP becomes ICP.

 

ACS                Accountable Care System

ACSs were to be the delivery vehicle for implementing STP cost cutting and integrated care services. That is until they were re-named Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in February 2018. ACSs/ICSs will be private consortia of NHS bodies, Local Authorities, GP federations and private care providers who will deliver care services under 10/15 year, fixed price contracts. Specific sections of the population will be targeted and provided with care for specific conditions. Contract cost will be calculated using capitated costing i.e. a fixed annual cost for each head of population. MCP and PACS are ACS/ICS models of care. All ACSs/ICSs were ‘paused’ in January 2018.

 

Acute

Acute medicine refers to the immediate and early management of adults in hospital who require urgent or emergency care. Generally refers to physical illnesses and conditions (usually short term) which require diagnostic tests, treatment and follow-up care.

 

ADHD            Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

 

ADT Admissions, Discharges and Transfers

 

AHP Allied Health Professional

Healthcare professionals distinct from nursing, medicine and pharmacy.  Some 30 professions fit into this category (e.g. anaesthetic technician, music therapist, etc).

 

ALOS              Average Length of Stay

In a hospital bed.

 

APMS             Alternative Provider Medical Services

This is one of three types of GP contracts. It is a time-limited contract type which can be held by private providers including limited liability companies.

 

AQP Any Qualified Provider

Dating back to 2011, the AQP arrangement allows private healthcare providers to compete for CCG (q.v.) contracts with NHS providers.

 

ASCOF   Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework

ASCOF aims to give an indication of the strengths and weaknesses of social care in delivering better outcomes for people who use adult social care services.

 

ASD                Autism Spectrum Disorder

 

BAAF British Adoption And Fostering

A voluntary organisation which supports, advises and campaigns for better outcomes for children in care. It was founded over 30 years ago.

 

BAF Board Assurance Framework

A mechanism to reinforce strategic focus and management of risk

 

BAME            Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic

 

BDO

The company that is NHS NWL’s External auditor.

 

BMA British Medical Association

A professional association and trade union for doctors in the UK.  It was formed in 1832.

 

Bed Blocking

When patients, fit to be discharged from hospital, are not discharged due to lack of appropriate facilities in the community. In NHS parlance this is referred to as Deferred Transfers of Care (DTOC).

 

BCF                 Better Care Fund

First announced in June 2013, £5.3 billion was to be spent on transforming local health and social care resources by pooling resources. Major goals were reducing hospital admissions and making annual cost savings of £1 billion. BCF went live in April 2015. In November 2015 the Government froze the fund at £3.8 billion. The National Audit Office  branded BCF as a ‘shambles’ – hospital admissions rose not fell and instead of cost savings BCF had cost an additional £311 million.

 

BF                  Brighter Futures

A London self-advocacy group of active young asylum seekers, refugees  and migrants

 

BHH CCGs   Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon CCG Collaborative

 

CA                  Clinical Advisor

Responsible for assessing the health and clinical needs of people who phone the NHS 111 telephone service.

 

CAMHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

 

Care Network

A group of General Practitioner surgeries in Ealing grouped together to share equipment and services. This includes diagnostic tests (such as ECGs), therapies and services for long term conditions.

 

Care Setting

Where an individual receives care

 

CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

A talking therapy that tries to help mental health service users to manage their problems by attempting to change the way they think and behave.

 

CCG     Clinical Commissioning Group

NHS organisations set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to organise the delivery of NHS services in England. To some extent they replaced Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), although some of the PCT staff and responsibilities moved to Council Public Health teams and CSUs after PCTs ceased to exist in April 2013. A well propagated myth is that CCGs are local GP-led. For example, Ealing CCG has 22 people on its Board of Governors only 7 of which are GPs. There are 211 CCGs.

 

CCU Coronary Care Unit

 

CDD Clinical Due Diligence

This is the process by which the NHSI is assured that clinical risk will be managed and quality maintained during and after a merger transaction.

 

CDOP             Child Death Overview  Panel

 

1. diff Clostridium difficile

A bacterium which causes diarrhoea. It can be fatal. 14,000 deaths in the USA in 2011 were caused by C.diff.

 

CEPN              Community Education Provider Network

 

CFO                 Chief Financial Officer

 

CHC (NHS) Continuing Healthcare

This is free healthcare outside of hospital that is arranged and funded by the NHS. It is only available for people who need ongoing healthcare and who meet a set of eligibility criteria.

 

CHD                Coronary Heart Disease

 

Choose and Book

This was a national electronic referral service which gives patients a choice of place, date and time for their first outpatient appointment in a hospital. Introduced in 2005 it was replaced by NHS e-Referral service in June 2015.

 

CI                  Commissioning Intention

 

CIP               Cost Improvement Programme

 

Clinical Governance

A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care.

 

Clinical Pathway: An American concept dating back to 1985 which can be viewed as an application of process management thinking to the improvement of patient care. It is applied to a specific group of patients with a predictable clinical course, in which the different tasks (interventions) by the professionals involved in the patient care are defined, optimised and sequenced either by hour (emergency department), day (acute) or visit (home care). Outcomes are tied to specific interventions.

 

CMHT Community Mental Health Team

 

CNR                Case Notes Review

 

Co-Commissioning

This is where two or more care service commissioners align their priorities while retaining responsibility for their own resources. Within the NHS this flawed concept of trying to ‘merge’ departments’ competing goals is barely credible. Where, more and more, we are seeing it with NHS and Local Authority bodies attempting co-commissioning it’s ludicrous.

 

Commissioning

For over 20 years in the NHS there has been a formal separation of service purchasing (so called NHS commissioning) and service provision. This separation opens the way for private healthcare companies to deliver NHS service provision.

 

COPD Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

 

CPA Care Programme Approach

The system used to organise care for secondary mental health services.

 

CQUIN Commissioning for Quality and Innovation

This is a system introduced in 2009 to make a proportion of healthcare providers’ income conditional on demonstrating improvements in quality and innovation in specified areas of care.

 

CQC Care Quality Commission

A non-departmental public body of UK government set up in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. This includes services provided by NHS, local authorities, private companies and voluntary organisations – whether in hospitals, care homes or people’s homes. It employs over 2,000 staff. CQC has had its share of criticism and controversies during its relatively short life.

 

CRHT             Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment

 

CRO                Clinical Research Organisation

 

CSC                 Children’s Social Care

 

CSU Commissioning Support Unit

Formed in April 2013, CSUs provided extensive care contracting and business support services to CCGs, NHS Trusts, NHS England and Local Government. Services often range from finance and information governance through to acute contract management and health informatics. In 2013 there were 25 CSUs. In 2014 some CSUs were taken in-house by CCGs and some merged with each other. The Government’s intention was that by 2016 CSUs would become independent bodies. By March 2018 there appeared to be five accredited regional public body CSUs. Added to these, are private company CSUs – Capita, Optum (United Health) and the eMBED consortium which includes Dr Foster.

 

CVD                Cardiovascular Disease

 

CWHHE CCGs

A ‘Collaborative’ of the Clinical Commissioning Groups in Central London, West London, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hounslow and Ealing. Ealing CCG joined this collaborative on 1 December 2013.

 

C&YP            Children and Young People

 

DDLAC          Designated Doctor for Looked After Children

 

District General Hospital

A Major Hospital.

 

DTOC            Delayed Transfer of Care

Bed blocking to the lay person. DTOCs are often caused by patients who have no available Out of Hospital health/social care package or who need a mental health bed which is unavailable.

 

DFG Disabled Facilities Grant

A grant available for essential adaptations to give disabled people better freedom of movement into and around their homes. Mandatory DFGs are obtained from local authorities in England and Wales.

 

DIPC Director of Infection Prevention and Control

A DIPC has executive authority and responsibility for ensuring strategies are implemented to prevent avoidable Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs)

 

Discharge to Assess

A pilot being led by ECCG and Ealing Hospital to move patients out of a hospital bed into their own bed at home – presumably as quickly as possible.

 

DNA Did Not Attend

 

DNLAC          Designated Nurse for Looked After Children

 

DoH Department of Health

 

DPIA               Data Protection Impact Assessment

 

DPO                Data Protection Officer

 

ECCG

Commissioner of primary and secondary healthcare in Ealing. Allegedly a body of local GPs, but of the 22 members of the Governing Body just 7 are GPs.

 

ECG Electrocardiogram

An ECG is a recording of the heart’s electrical conductive system.

 

ED                   Emergency Department

 

EHC Plan       Education, Health and Care

Introduced in The Children and Families Act (2014)

 

EIA/EAIA Equality Analysis and Impact Assessment

A process to improve quality of local health services by ensuring that all Trust employees think carefully about the impact of their work on staff, service users and family carers

 

Elective Hospital

A hospital providing elective surgery and medicine, out-patients and diagnostics and high dependency care. Patients are admitted from a waiting list. Treatment at these facilities is not interrupted by emergency cases (except in winter A&E crises as happened in 2017/18).

 

EMSA             Eliminating Mixed Sex Accommodation

 

ENT                 Ear Nose and Throat

 

EPR Electronic Patient Record

Comprises a series of software applications which bring together key clinical and administrative data into one place.

 

EQIA               Equality Analysis and Impact Assessment

 

ESCAN            Ealing Services for Children with Additional Needs

 

ESCB               Ealing Safeguarding Children Board

 

ESON               Ealing Save Our NHS

Campaigning volunteer organisation active since 2012.

www.ealingsaveournhs.org.uk

 

ESRF               End Stage Renal Failure

 

ETTF               Estates and Technology Transformation

 

FCE Finished Consultant Episode

The point at which a patient is discharged from the care of a particular consultant

 

FFT                  Friends and Family Test

Gives every patient the opportunity to feedback on the quality of the care they receive.

 

FGM                Female Genital Mutilation

 

FYFV              Five Year Forward View

NHSE published this in 2014. It gives details on prevention, empowering patients, new models of care including MCPs, PACS, maternity care and care homes. It extols the virtue of technology, innovation and productivity.

 

Footprint

There are 44 footprints which cover the whole of England. Footprints are run by representatives of Local Authorities, NHS CCGs and NHS Trusts. Each one created a  Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) in October 2016. Footprints must execute their STPs and clear all financial deficits by 2021.

 

FT (NHS) Foundation Trust

A not for profit, public benefit corporation. It differs from an NHS Trust in as much as it is not directed by government. It can retain any surplus and borrow to invest in improved services. It is accountable to its local community, its commissioners, Parliament, the CQC and NHS Improvement.

 

FTE                 Full Time Equivalent

The hours worked by an employee on a full time basis. Can be used to convert hours worked by several part-time workers

 

GB                   Governing Body

 

GDPR             General Data Protection Regulation

Comes into effect on 25 May 2018

 

GMS                General Medical Services  

One of the three types of GP contracts for delivering Primary care. Was introduced in April 2014.

 

GP General Practitioner

A qualified doctor who provides primary care, management of long term conditions and health promotion and preventative services.

 

GPFV              General Practice Forward View

Published by NHSE in April 2016, it commits to £2.4 billion/year GP support until 2020/21

 

HAP                Health Action Plan

 

HASSP Health and Adult Social Services Scrutiny Panel

This statutory body reviews and scrutinises the planning, provision and operation of health services in the area. In the London Borough of Ealing (LBE) this panel meets in public every 11 weeks or so. It is made up of LBE Elected Members (Councillors), LBE Officers and representatives of around 10 local NHS bodies.  

 

HCAI Healthcare Acquired Infections

Infections resulting from medical care or treatment in hospital (in- or out-patient), nursing home or even in a patient’s home. Typically these infections are (in order of incidence) gastrointestinal system, respiratory, urinary tract, surgical site, skin and soft tissue and primary bloodstream.

 

HCAS High Cost Area Supplement

A long standing funding arrangement which compensates the WLMHT for additional costs of employing staff in the outer London area.

 

HDU High Dependency Unit

Provides specialist care for adults with different medical and surgical conditions. It assists patients who are at risk of deteriorating.

 

Health and Wellbeing Board

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 established these boards as forums for key leaders from the health and care system to work together to improve the health and wellbeing of their local population and reduce health inequalities.

 

HEE                Health Education England

 

Healthwatch

A largely ineffectual consumer champion that gathers and represents the public’s views on health and social care. It is not a regulatory body but it has statutory authority. Funding is from Local Authorities. There are 152 of them throughout England

 

HENRY          Health Exercise and Nutrition for the Really Young

 

HI Health Intelligence

 

HLP                Health London Partnership

 

HR                  Human Resources

 

HSCIC            Health and Social Care Information Centre

Set up in April 2013.

 

H-STAT          Health Service Travel Analysis Toolkit

A set of strategic analysis tools developed by TfL and the NHS. The principal tool is a travel time database for both highway and public transport modes in London.

 

Hub

In NHS NWL a Hub (or a Community Hub) means a physical building which will house a  wider range of day care services than would be offered by a smaller GP practice. Services offered will include ophthalmology, cardiology, integrated diabetes service, long term condition management, community mental health, physiotherapy, dermatology, gynaecology, phlebotomy, MSK, ENT, adult community care and enhanced Primary care.

 

IAPT Improving Access to Psychological Services

An NHS programme offering interventions approved by NICE for treating people with depression, anxiety disorders, panics, phobias, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and post traumatic stress disorder. Treatments include education groups, counselling, guided self help and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

 

ICASE Integrated Care and Support Exchange

This team helps pioneer integrated care sites

 

ICHT               Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

 

ICP Integrated Care Pathway

One way of managing, monitoring and recording a patient’s care. See ‘Clinical Pathway’.

 

ICS                 Integrated Care System

The new (February 2018) name for Accountable Care System (ACS)

 

ICT Information and Communications Technology

 

ICU Intensive Care Unit

A special Ward which provides intensive care for those patients who are in a critically ill or unstable condition.

 

IDCR               Integrated Digital Care Record

 

IG                     Information Governance

 

IGPR                International GP Recruitment

 

ImBC SOC1

One of two 2012 NHS North West London (NWL) SaHF business cases, which requested £513 million for building work at hospitals, GP surgeries and building community health hubs in NWL. It first appeared in public in December 2016 and was rejected by NHSE/NHSI (London) in November 2017, on the grounds of lack of evidence to justify  reducing NELs annually by 99,000 by 2025/26. If ImBC SOC1 does not get Treasury approval then the SaHF plan to eliminate Ealing District Hospital falls apart and there is no Plan B.

 

ImBC SOC2

The other 2012 NHS NWL SaHF business case, which will request £314 million for building work at ‘inner’ NWL hospitals. As of April 2018, this business case had not been submitted for approval or made public.

 

Integrated Care

The Coalition Government planned that the health and social care system will be fully joined together by 2018. The approach is that structures like the Health and Wellbeing Boards will bring together Local Authorities, the NHS, social care providers, education, housing services and others to bring about better integration of local services. This nirvana had not been achieved by 2018, and it is unlikely to be achieved for many years to come.

 

ICS                 Integrated Care System

In February 2018 NHS decided to change the name of Accountable Care System (ACS) to Integrated Care System (ICS). See Accountable Care System

 

IC                    Intermediate Care

NHS Intermediate Care Services are provided to patients – mostly older – to help them avoid going into hospital. They last up to six weeks and can be delivered at home or in a care home.

 

IHA                Initial Health Assessment

For Looked After Children

 

IPS                  Individual Placement Support

This aims to develop employment support for adults with addiction

 

IPR                  Integrated Performance Review

 

IRP Independent Reconfiguration Panel

A supposedly independent expert group focusing on NHS service change. In the NWL IRP in date most members were paid directly or indirectly by the NHS. It offers informal advice and guidance to the Secretary of State for Health. Its recommendations have no statutory authority. The NHS NW London IRP found no compelling evidence to support the SaHF downsizing of Charing Cross and Ealing Hospitals.

 

ISA                  Information Sharing Agreement

 

ISP Intensive Support Programme

For acute mental health service users this involves talking about feelings, emotions and ways of thinking and behaving.

 

JHOSC Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee

In north west London this body is composed of Councillors from 9 Local Authorities. Senior NHS staff are invited to attend its six times a year meetings. Its purpose appears to be to scrutinise both the purchasing of NHS services and the delivery of NHS services. Attendance by Local Government Councillors is sporadic.

 

KPI Key Performance Indicator

The purpose of KPIs is to define consistent performance measures for a selection of public health priorities. Examples of these indicators are psychological support, quality, outcomes, unplanned admissions, access, communication and activity.

 

LA                   Local Authority

 

LAC Looked After Children

Refers to all children and young people under 16 who are either ‘In Care’ (Part IV of the Children Act) or  ‘Accommodated’ (Part III of the Children Act).

 

LAS London Ambulance Service

 

LBE                London Borough of Ealing

 

LIFT               Local Improvement Finance Trust

An NHS LIFT is a public/private partnership funded NHS facility. A kind of PFI

 

LIS                   Local Improvement Scheme

 

Local Hospital

Its strict, formal definition by the NHS North West London (NWL) is still awaited. However a working definition might be: a hospital providing an Urgent Care Centre, outpatients, diagnostics, and further day care services, including specialist clinics and outpatient rehabilitation. An NHS NWL Local Hospital has no traditional A&E services, no Emergency Care consultants, no Intensive Care Unit and no operating theatres. Ambulances will never deliver chronically ill or severely injured patients to an NHS NWL Local Hospital.

 

London Health and Care Information Exchange

Launched in May 2016, this is an £18 million grant funded three year project

 

London North West University NHS Healthcare Trust

Formed on 1 October 2014, this organisation includes Central Middlesex, Ealing, Northwick Park and St Marks hospitals together with community services across Brent, Ealing and Harrow including Willesden Centre for Health and Care. It employs 8,000 staff and serves 850,000 people. (Sometime in 2018 ‘University’ was added to its name. Apparently the University is University College London, but the University of Buckingham has an office in Ealing Hospital and there are also links with Imperial College London).

 

LSU Low Secure Unit

Delivers intensive, comprehensive, multidisciplinary treatment and care by qualified staff for patients who demonstrate disturbed/violent behaviour in the context of a serious mental disorder and who require the provision of security.

 

LTC Long Term Condition

Such as chronic pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, mental health problems and people with a high risk of a stroke.

 

Major Hospital

A hospital providing A&E, Urgent Care Centre, trauma care, emergency surgery, intensive care, obstetrics, midwife unit and in-patient paediatrics. District General Hospitals are Major Hospitals.

 

MCP              Multispeciality Community Provider

MCPs are new place-based models of care, which deliver Primary care and community-based health and care services. MCPs serve whole populations. There are 14 MCP Vanguards which were selected in 2015/16. MCPs are ACS/ICS models of care – see ACS or ICS. MCPs were first introduced in NHSE’s Five Year Forward View in 2014.

 

MDT               Multi-discipline Teams

 

MECC            Making Every Contact Count

 

MHFA            Mental Health First Aid

 

MI                   Myocardial Infarction

A heart attack

 

Monitor

The body which regulated health services in England – and is now part of NHS Improvement

 

MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging

MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields and radio waves to form images of the body

 

MRSA   Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus

A bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It is resistant to penicillins. It is especially troublesome where patients have open wounds, invasive devices and weakened immune systems.

 

MSK Musculoskeletal

Encompasses well over 200 disorders affecting joints, bones, muscles and soft tissues (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lower and upper back pain, osteoporosis and carpal tunnel syndrome)

 

MSU Medium Secure Unit

Houses people who have been admitted by the Courts under the Mental Health Act (MHA), who have been transferred from prison under the MHA or people transferred from an ordinary hospital ward because it is felt they need to be treated in a more secure setting.

 

NAO National Audit Office

 

NCA Non-Contact Activity

Known as ‘Out of Area Treatment’ prior to 2005. This is where patients cannot be treated locally because of resource unavailability and have to be treated elsewhere. In 2012/13 for example there were 232 NCA patients living in Leeds who were treated elsewhere – some as far away as Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset. NCA also applies to overseas visitors.

 

NHSE NHS England

It oversees the budget, planning and delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England. It also holds the contracts for some GPs and dentists.

 

NHSI               NHS Improvement

Operational since 1 April 2016, it oversees NHS Foundation Trusts, NHS Trusts and private suppliers of NHS-funded care. It took over Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority

 

NHS Number

This is the National Unique Identifier used to help healthcare staff and service providers match you to your health records. The NHS care.data programme, run by Atos, releases this number to any third party unless you have written to your GP forbidding this.

 

NHSNWL National Health Service North West London

 

NELs              Non-Elective Admissions

These are largely emergency admissions into Major Hospitals.

 

NTDA NHS Trust Development Authority

Responsible for providing leadership and support to the non-Foundation Trust sector of NHS providers. Now part of NHS Improvement.

 

NOS               National Occupational Standards

 

NWL              North West London

 

OD                  Organisational Development

 

OFSTED        The Office for Standards for Education, Children’s Services & Skills

 

Once for London

Pan-London operating principles for Primary Care set up by NHS London

 

OOB               Out of Borough

 

OOH Out Of Hours

 

OPE                 Operational Pressures Escalation

This framework provides a way of hospitals indicating how much pressure they are under on any particular day.

 

OP+LTC          Old People and Long Term Conditions

 

Out of Hospital Services (OOH)

This involves delivering more care in community settings such as in patients’ homes, GP surgeries, and local health centres. Illness Prevention through self-help is also part of OOH. It aims to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions, visits to hospital and fewer hospital beds.

 

PACS             Primary and Acute Care System

PACS join up GP, hospital, community and mental health services. Nine Vanguards were chosen to develop PACS. PACS was first mentioned in the NHSE Five Year Forward View in 2014. PACS is an ACS/ICS model of care – see ACS or ICS.

 

PAM              Patient Activation Measure

 

PAS Patient Administration System

An IT system which automates the administrative paperwork in healthcare organisations, particularly hospitals.

 

Pathway

See ‘Clinical Pathway’

 

PAU Paediatric Assessment Unit

 

PCCC             Ealing CCG’S Primary Care Commissioning Committee

 

PFI Private Finance Initiative

A way of creating ‘public-private’ partnerships (PPPs) by funding public infrastructure projects with private capital. Early PFIs were 60 year projects but in recent years 30 years is the standard. The total cost of new PFI hospitals will be considerably more than the build costs. The new Barts Hospital cost £1.1 billion to build but when fully paid off in 2048/49 the total cost will have been £7.1 billion.

 

PGM                Policy and Guidance Manual

 

PICU Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit

A safe, secure and low stimulus Ward environment separate from the rest of the inpatient unit.

 

PID                  Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

 

PMCF              Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund

 

PMS                 Premenstrual Syndrome

 

PMS                 Personal Medical Services

One of the three types of GP contracts.                 

 

Polyclinic

A place where a wide range of health care services (including diagnostics) can be obtained without the need of an overnight stay. Although common and successful in Cuba, France, Germany, India, Russia and Ukraine, polyclinics never got off the ground in England. The original 2007 Lord Darzi plan suggested a total of 150 NHS Polyclinics in London, each dealing with around 25,000 patients. This plan was never implemented. The October 2016 STPs refer to ‘Hubs’ which seem quite similar to the Polyclinic idea.

 

PPE                Patient and Public Engagement

 

Primary Care

Usually the first place people go for health advice and treatment, outside of a hospital. The service is provided near to or in a patient’s home by GPs, nurses, therapists, dentists, pharmacists and opticians. These Primary Care providers deliver health promotion, care and treatment, and refer patients to and liaise with hospitals and other care providers.

 

PSED Public Sector Equality Duty

Requires NHS organisations to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and good relations.

 

PTSD              Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

 

QIPP Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention

Large scale transformation programme for the NHS which aimed to improve the quality of care and make £20 billion efficiency savings by 2014/15.

 

QOF Quality and Outcome Framework

A voluntary annual reward and incentive programme detailing GP practice achievement results. Introduced in 2004 it gives an indication of the overall achievement of a surgery through a points system.

 

QRP Quality & Risk Profile

A tool used for gathering together key information about an NHS service provider to support how compliance is monitored with the essential standards of quality and safety. QRP helps CQC assess where risks lie.

 

QPS                Quality Payments Scheme

 

Q&S               Quality and Safety

 

RCA                Root Cause Analysis

A systematic approach to the assessment of Serious Incidents

 

RCPsych         Royal College of Psychiatrists

 

RFI                 Request For Information

 

RR                  Rapid Response

 

RSM

NHS NWL Internal auditor – previously known as Baker Tilley             

 

RTT Referral To Treatment

A target time NHS England set for hospitals to treat within a period of time starting when the request for treatment is made.

 

Safeguarding Adults’ Board

An Independent multi-agency partnership which raises awareness and promotes the welfare of vulnerable adults by the development of an effective co-operative.

 

SaHF Shaping a Healthier Future

This is an experiment in NHS NW London which is an attempt to cut costs by closing 4 out of  9 hospital A&Es, downgrading 4 hospitals to enhanced UCC status and changing settings of care for up to 2 million people from hospital to ambulance, home, GP surgery or community healthcare facility. Announced in 2012, its annual financial savings target of 4% had by March 2018 not been achieved. Also by March 2018 only 2 A&Es had been closed. In November 2017, the SaHF business case (IMBC SOC1) which asked for £513 million for building work was rejected by NHSE/NHSI (London).

 

SCF                 Strategic Commissioning Framework

 

SDQ                Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire

A short behavioural/mental health questionnaire for 13-16 year old Looked After Children

 

Secondary Care

Specialist care typically provided in a hospital setting or following referral from a primary or community professional.

 

SCO                Special Guardianship Order

 

SHMI Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator

The ratio between the actual number of patients who die following treatment at a Trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there.

 

SI                    Serious Incident

 

SIRO              Serious Risk Information Owner

 

SLA                 Service Level Agreement

 

SOH                Save Our Hospitals

Hammersmith and Fulham volunteer campaigning organisation.

 

SPA                 Single Point of Access

Single telephone number support. Currently used by WLMHT mental patients in Ealing, Fulham, Hammersmith and Hounslow. Should have 24/7 clinical support but is sometimes deficient in this respect.

 

Specialist Hospital

A hospital offering highly specialised care, such as for cardiothoracics and cancer.

 

SRO Senior Responsible Officer

The individual responsible for ensuring that a project or programme of change meets its objectives and delivers the projected benefits.

 

STEIS             Strategic Executive Information System

 

STP                 Sustainability and Transformation Plan

STPs are five year cost cutting and improvement plans (2016 – 2021) for healthcare and social care. STPs are created by Footprints. Each of the 44 Footprints in England published its STP in October 2016. The STP care services’ delivery mechanisms were to be Accountable Care Partnerships (ACPs), Multispeciality Community Providers (MCPs) and Primary and Acute Care Systems (PACS). Accountable Care Systems (ACSs) entered the NHS lexicon in 2017. STPs will apparently eventually morph into ACSs. However in February 2018 the ‘Accountable Care’ name was ditched and replaced by ‘Integrated Care’.Somewhat confusingly in March 2017, NHSE also began defining STP to mean Sustainability and Transformation Partnership.

 

SystemOne

A healthcare software system. It has been used widely in the NHS since 2006. Applications include those for GPs, community care, children’s healthcare services, mental health, Secondary Care and social services. It allows for remote access to patient records and for clinical and medication ordering.

 

S&T                Strategy and Transformation

 

TDA NHS Trust Development Authority

Provided leadership and support to the non-Foundation Trust sector of NHS providers. Now part of NHS Improvement.

 

Transport for London

A local government body (‘statutory corporation’) responsible for most aspects of the major public transport systems in Greater London.

 

THH The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

 

TIA                  Transient Ischaemic Attack

A ‘mini-stroke’

 

TOR                 Terms Of Reference

 

TPP                   

The UK company which developed and supports SystemOne.

     

Trusts

Trusts are in effect public sector companies providing services on behalf of NHS England.

 

UASC             Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

 

UCC Urgent Care Centre

A limited range of ‘minor’ emergency and accident conditions are treated at UCCs – but 44 defined conditions (at Ealing Hospital UCC) are not treated. Staffed by GPs and nurses these can complement A&Es or exist as stand alone facilities. As stand alone facilities they will not receive flashing blue light ambulances and will have no on-site access to Intensive Care beds, consultants or an ICU.

 

UCLH              University College London Hospital

 

Unbundled Services

The breakdown of components of care pathways into individual service elements such as rehabilitation, high cost drugs and critical care. This allows these elements to be priced and commissioned separately.

 

Vanguards

NHS grant-supported experiments in developing and delivering new care models. There are 50 of  them and they were selected between January and September 2015. They are variously collections of NHS CCGs, Trusts, GP federations, Ambulance services, Local and County Councils, and private healthcare suppliers all trying to work together. Vanguard missions include Acute care collaboration, urgent and Emergency care, enhanced care in care homes, MCPs, and integrated Primary and Acute care systems. So far to March 2018, £346 million has been spent on them.

 

WLA              West London Alliance

A 17 year old partnership between seven West London Local Authorities – Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Hillingdon and Hounslow.

 

WLMHT West London Mental Health Trust

Provides mental health services for the 770,000 residents in Ealing, Hounslow, Hammersmith and Fulham. Also manages Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital for men in Crowthorne, Berkshire.

 

WRAP             Workshop to Raise Awareness of Prevent

 

WRES             Workforce Race Equality Standard

 

WSIC              Whole Systems Integrated Care

 

WTE Whole Time Equivalent

Human Resources term for a job requiring a full time employee or two half time employees.

 

YP                    Young People

 

YTD                 Year to Date

 

Version: 7

16 April 2018

Ealing Save Our NHS has been campaigning against the planned cuts to Ealing Hospital and opposes the latest plans to contract out and potentially privatise all our community health services. We wrote to the Conservatives, Labour , Liberal Democrats and Greens  to ask where they stood on each of these important issues for local people. Here are the replies we received.

[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]

Question 1:  The Big “Sell Off” of Ealing’s NHS

Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group is advertising for a single contractor to run “out of Hospital” services for 10 years.  This contract, tendering out Ealing’s NHS services is worth over half a billion pounds of public money.

Do you support or oppose this tendering out and possible privatisation of huge amounts of NHS services in Ealing?  Have the local meetings of your Party discussed this proposal and if so what are their views?

If your Party supports this tender of NHS services, how do you believe those who won such a huge contract would be accountable to us, the public? 

Or, if your party opposes this tendering out of public services, just what has it done about it?[/dropshadowbox]

 

EALING LABOUR PARTY

 

Issue: 65

16 April 2018

 

This occasional newsletter is researched, written and edited by a group of concerned residents in Ealing, West London who want to preserve our NHS. We view the wholesale engagement of private, for-profit healthcare service suppliers as unnecessary, profligate and dangerous. Increased financial funding is what is needed in our NHS – not financial cuts, closure of vital services or privatisation.

 

NHS North West London (NWL) Hire Management Consultants For £95,400 to Yet Again Re-write Business Case for the Stalled 2012 ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ (SaHF)Project

The NHS NWL Clinical Commissioning Group cabal has revealed that in November 2017 it hired management consultants GE Healthcare Finnamore. The consultant’s task was/is to work on ‘Urgent & Emergency Care Strategy (Strategic Outline Case)’. The cost for completing the task was/is £95,400.

 

The work described here relates to the December 2016 NHS NWL SaHF ImBC SOC1 business case which was rejected by NHS England (London) and NHS Improvement England (London) on 28 September 2017. A major component of this business case was/is a request for £513 million for building work. NHSE/NHSI could find no evidence in the business case to support the assertion that 99,000 Non-Elective admissions could be eliminated annually at NWL Acute hospitals by 2025/26. A further claim was that implementing SaHF SOC1 would save 334 lives each year!

 

The SaHF, published in 2012, promised to ‘..improve care both in hospitals and the community and save many lives each year’. It also promised 4% cost savings every year. In September 2014 SaHF downgraded Central Middlesex and Hammersmith District General Hospitals with the consequent loss of two hospital A&E units. A&E performance in NWL immediately plummeted and has never recovered. No SaHF figures on lives saved or cost savings have ever been announced.

 

Apparently on 9 February 2018, NHS NWL bosses were going to have another go at persuading NHSE/NHSI on the merits of its revamped ImBC SOC1 business case. However this meeting was cancelled. Seemingly another such meeting was likely in March 2018, but if it happened and NHS NWL had succeeded, no doubt we would have heard about it by now.

 

NHS NWL has acknowledged in public numerous times that if ImBC SOC1 continues to be rejected and consequently the request for £513 million is refused, then the plan to close Ealing District General Hospital will be abandoned.

 

Sean Boyle and Roger Steer Deliver Another Compelling Critique of NHS North West London’s Plans and Performance in ‘Current Issues in the Delivery of Health Care in NW London’

Published on 19 March 2018, this 20 page report provides clear evidence that the 2012 NHS NWL’s ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ (SaHF) plan was ill-conceived and its goals are not being met. The authors are both very experienced and this is the third report they have authored on this topic. They wrote up the findings of the ‘Independent Healthcare Commission for North West London’ in 2015 and along with John Lister authored the ‘Health and Social Care in North West London: a Review of SaHF and the NWL STP’ in 2016. This latest report was commissioned by the London Borough of  Hammersmith & Fulham (LBH&F) who have been consistently the leading West London Local Authority in researching and reporting on care planning and implementation realities in recent years.

 

Highlights of the report include:

 

+ Population Growth

SaHF underestimated this. The 2016 population was larger than SaHF estimated it would be for 2022 by some 800,000. ONS data quoted shows a 10.5% projected growth of population in NWL from 2016 to 2026.

 

+ Attendances at Acute A&E Units

This has fallen in NWL by 16.5% since 2011/12

 

+Attendances at non-Acute ‘minor A&Es’

This has risen drastically (at Urgent Care Centres and walk-in centres) since 2011/12. This pattern of attendance is very different in NWL compared with the rest of London and the rest of England. In 2011/12 in England, 65% of A&E activity was Acute, whereas in NWL it was 49%. By Q3 2017/18, A&E activity attendance at Acute units remained at 65% but in NWL it had fallen to 37%.

 

+ Admissions into Acute Hospitals

Risen by 8% in NWL since 2011/12. This figure includes a dramatic rise in the number of emergency admissions not via A&E. Direct admissions by GPs rose from 12,000 in 2011/12 to 29,000 in 2016/17.

 

+ Waiting Times at Acute A&E Units

Since September 2014, the proportion of people not treated within four hours has been consistently poorer in NWL than elsewhere in London and in England

 

+ Waiting Times to be Admitted to a Bed in Acute Hospitals

In Q3 2017, 5.3% waited for up to 12 hours for admission to NWL hospitals. For the rest of London it was 2.75% and the average for England was 4.1%.

 

+ Acute Bed Capacity

Between 2009/10 and 2017/18 this fell 270 beds in NWL.

 

+ Report Recommendation to LBH&F

Worth repeating in full:

‘The Council should continue to monitor NHS plans, and to insist that these are subject to the full scrutiny of the Council. Future demand projections and evidence for the success of out-of-hospital services and new models of care continue to be updated and although there is evidence that acute A&E attendances may have fallen across NW London, this has not resulted from SaHF plans presented now. In our view the introduction of minor A&E units has had the biggest influence. Moreover the level of emergency admissions has risen since 2012, not decreased as SaHF would have projected’.

 

The report makes for refreshing reading as it’s written largely in everyday language with a minimum of jargon. One does wonder just how many more times these experienced, expert healthcare researchers, observers and communicators have to document the continuing failure of the 2012 SaHF initiative. Surely it would be a mercy killing to stop attempting to resuscitate SaHF?

 

Read the report at:

www.lbhf.gov.uk/sites/default/files/section_attachments/current_issues_in_the_delivery_of_health_care_in_the_borough_final.pdf

 

LEGAL NEWS

 

+ 999callforNHS – Accountable Care Organisations, Whole Population Budgets: Judicial Review

In Court on 24 April 2018 in Leeds

www.999callfornhs.org/999-judicial-review/459383706

 

+ JR4NHS – Accountable Care Organisations, lack of public consultation and lack of Parliamentary scrutiny and legislation: Judicial Review

In Court on 23 and 24 May 2018

http://bit.ly/JR4NHS

 

+ Barnsley and Rotherham

Both Barnsley Save Our NHS and Rotherham Save Our NHS are seeking to raise funds to support a legal challenge to fight the planned closure of the emergency stroke services at both local hospitals in South Yorkshire.

Crowd funding has begun at:

www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-local-hospitals

 

+ Dorset

A patient, supported by Defend Dorset NHS and represented by Leigh Day solicitors, is seeking a Judicial Review of Dorset CCG’s plan to downgrade Poole A&E, close Poole Maternity, close Acute beds, and close Community beds in 5 of 13 Dorset locations.

A Full Hearing has been granted for 17 and 18 July 2018.

Crowd funding is underway to raise an initial £9,000 at:

www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-poole-ae-and-maternity-and-nhs-beds/

 

+ Huddersfield

The campaign to prevent the closure of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary received a boost on 15 March 2018 when Judge Mark Gosnall approved a full Judicial Review Hearing. This is expected to take place in June 2018.

www.officialhandsoffhri.org

 

+ Lancashire County Council (LCC)

A judge ruled against LCC in January 2018 that privatisation of one service threatens the whole local NHS. The judge’s written ruling in February 2018 stated that LCC paying damages to two NHS Trusts that had challenged LCC’s award of a £100 million children’s service contract to Virgin Care, would not make up for the disruption and damage to the provision of the whole range of healthcare.

 

The two NHS Foundation Trusts are claiming that their loss of the children’s contract would cost them £2 million and result in 160 job losses. A Final Hearing will take place in April 2018.

http://calderdaleandkirklees999callforthenhs.wordpress.com

 

Smartphone GP Consultation Services – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

There is clearly a demand for ‘instant’ free Smartphone consultations with an NHS GP. For one thing it could eliminate waiting weeks for a face-to-face consultation. It could cut out that messy business of travelling to a GP surgery and having to sit in reception and actually meet your GP in person. The service might be available 24 hours/day and it might suit your busy life to ‘see’ a doctor on your Smartphone at 4am.

 

A trial of such a service was agreed by NHS bosses in 2017 using a ‘GP at Hand’’ service which uses a mobile app developed by Babylon Health. The GP surgery involved is Dr Jefferies & Partners in Fulham, West London. A Smartphone consultation is on offer at two hours notice round the clock. Within a year, 26,000 patients have used the service and new patients are registering at Dr Jefferies’ for this service at the rate of 4,000 each month. As soon as you register, you are immediately eliminated from your existing GP surgery list.

 

In November 2017, Local Medical Committee’s (LMC’s) national body voted not to introduce mobile GP consultation services until there is clear evidence that they are beneficial to patients.

 

The impact of the Fulham ‘GP at Hand’ experiment is yet to be fully evaluated, but Hammersmith & Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group (HFCCG) is in a bit of a financial pickle because of it. The HFCCG financial shortfall for its GPs is apparently now £5.4 million, but if ‘GP at Hand’ sign-ups continue at the current rate the annual HFCCG GP funding deficit could reach £10.6 million.

 

Concerns have been expressed by GPs and by others that the ‘GP at Hand ‘ consultation service is not available for all medical conditions and perhaps not available for certain types of patients. ‘GP at Hand’ does publicise a list of medical conditions it deals with. The words ‘mental health’, ‘cancer’ and ‘dementia’ are not on the list. However on the list are ‘colds and flu’ and ‘tennis elbow’.

 

NHS England (NHSE) has blown hot and cold on Smartphone GP consultations. In November 2017 it launched a £45 million funding pot for a limited number of GP surgeries to implement online consultation programmes over a three year period. However in January 2018, NHSE lodged a formal objection to a significant further roll-out of Babylon Health’s ‘GP at Hand’ service.

 

Now, just few months later, NHSE has decided to pay someone £250,000 for an independent evaluation of ‘GP at Hand’. However this won’t deliver its findings till May 2019. It might have been prudent for NHSE to have carried out a thorough evaluation of this service before launching this trial, which is causing disruption to GP surgery patient lists and some funding carnage in HFCCG.  

 

In January 2018, the Department of Health announced that there would be a public consultation on online GP services. It also announced that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) would be allowed to evaluate online GP services. Babylon Health said it doubted CQC’s inspecting powers were adequate with regard to digital health services.

 

Babylon Health is the brainchild of a Dr Ali Parsa. He has an eclectic background in civil engineering, ‘relationship services’ and investment banking. His doctorate is in the physics of fluids. In 2004 he set up Circle which became Europe’s largest clinician partnership. He left in 2012 and in 2013 he launched Babylon Health.

 

In the First Seven Weeks of 2018, the Death Rate in England and Wales was 12.4% Higher Than in Previous Years

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has reported that in the first seven weeks of  2018 93,990 people died in England and Wales. The average number of deaths in the comparable period over the last five years was 83,615 deaths. This rise in deaths of 10,375 is a rise of 12.4%.

 

The BMJ think it unlikely that flu or an aging population can explain this large change in mortality. The BMJ suggest that it’s a clear pattern of worsening health outcomes. Keep Our NHS Public is more forthright and says that it’s obvious that the 10,000+ extra deaths are a direct result of the Government austerity cuts to public services.

 

‘Our NHS in Crisis’ Newsletter Archive

Now available at www.ealingsaveournhs.org.uk

This archive stretches back over 60 issues of the newsletter since May 2013. I’m working on an index of issues which will be added soon to this excellent web site. I’ve been active in Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) for over five years and I’m currently ESON Vice Chair.

 

You can now read online our latest newsletter.

Shocking Plans for huge “sell off” of community services:

On a scale unlike anywhere else, Ealing’s health bosses intend to contract out most of the services they run. The Contract will last for 10 years and is worth half a billion pounds but possibly increasing up to £1.2 billion of our NHS money. It’s under offer to private health companies or any NHS management team. Whoever wins, it’s a type of privatisation on a massive scale.Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group ( Ealing’s health bosses) want to award this 10-year contract to a single provider, who would run all community health services, and some social care too. Community nursing, palliative care, diabetes, mental health and specialist children’s nursing, are just a few of the services up for grabs. The contractor would be expected to develop these services so that they can somehow ‘substitute’ for hospital beds – something that has never worked anywhere in the world.
You can read more on this story on our website here– https://ealingsaveournhs.org.uk/2018/04/shocking-plans-for-a-huge-sell-off-of-ealings-nhs-services/

Questions for candidates in the Election on our NHS:

We believe our NHS should be an issue in the local elections and that our Councillors should be campaigning against the plans to cut and downgrade Ealing Hospital. They should also be opposed to the big sell off of our community services.
On our website we now have some ‘Questions to Candidates’ which aim to find out where candidates and their parties stand on the Big ‘sell off’ of Ealing’s NHS and on the Future of Ealing Hospital. We hope you can use them when you next meet any candidates or in other places –
https://ealingsaveournhs.org.uk/2018/04/questions-to-candidates-in-the-ealing-council-elections-3rd-may-2018/

A poster for your window or a car sticker:

Lots of people replying to our Survey said they would like a poster for their window so here it is below and a copy is attached. If you would like us to drop off a poster please send us your address.

Every car in Ealing should have one!

As well as showing your support it also makes it easier to find your car in a car park! If you want to brighten up your car with our sticker and fly the flag please get in touch.

Ealing Street Stall Saturday 28th April:

We will be in Ealing Broadway (Marks & Spencers) on the 28th from 11.00-1.00pm with leaflets, petitions and our Questions for Candidates. If you can spare a little bit of time to help it would be lovely to see you.

CAMPAIGN MEETING TUESDAY 17TH APRIL- All welcome
This month we are delighted to be joined by Merril Hammer & Jim Grearly from our sister campaign, Save Our Hospitals (Hammersmith & Charing Cross) who will be giving us an update on the campaign to save the A&E and beds at Charing X Hospital.
We would love to see more people get involved, so new people are very welcome to our friendly meeting on the 17th at 7.30pm, Northfields Community Centre, 71a Northcroft Road, Ealing W13 9SS. Tea and Coffee provided

Some other worthwhile reading:

Current Issues for the delivery of health care in Hammersmith & Fulham:

Save Our Hospitals have circulated this well researched summary of the situation in North West London by two of the authors who wrote the Mansfield Report, Sean Boyle and Roger Steer. – definitely worth a read.

https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/sites/default/files/section_attachments/current_issues_in_the_delivery_of_health_care_in_the_borough_final.pdf

Exploiting Maternity Closure to make a profit:
A new article by Sarah Boston exposing ‘Window to the Womb’ a private company out to make big bucks flogging ante natal scans.
https://ealingsaveournhs.org.uk/2018/04/private-healthcare-companies-are-looking-for-business-and-profit/

‘NHS in Crisis’ now on our website:Eric Leach, Researcher and Ealing Save Our NHS Vice Chair produces an excellent Newsletter with in-depth analysis and information on the NHS Crisis and social care. This can now can now be found in our website ‘Library’ including all back copies. The latest issue has some great facts and figures on the Single Contract and more…

https://ealingsaveournhs.org.uk/category/our-nhs-in-crisis/

Thanks for reading our Newsletter and you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

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Window to the Womb Ealing

 

PRIVATE COMPANY  LOOKING FOR BUSINESS AND PROFIT.

 

If you Google – ‘Antenatal Scans at Ealing Hospital’  two sites top the search. Ealing Hospital which offers antenatal care. and  the private company Window to the Womb Ealing, which claims to be ‘Specialists in Well-being, Gender & 4D Baby Scans’

 

It is hardly surprising that with  the closure of the Maternity Unit at Ealing  Hospital the private company, Window to Womb, has moved into Ealing and is leafleting the area offering  ante natal scans. They offer a dazzling number of scans for women throughout their pregnancy – costs for a scan start at £55.

 

One of the scans on offer is for gender.  Their website trumpets that 

 

We offer our  99.9% accurate  Well-Being & Gender Scan from 16-22 weeks for just £59, you can visit us a full 4 weeks before the NHS scans for gender.

 

Screening specifically for gender is controversial and many NHS hospitals do not offer it unless it is for genetic abnormalities that only one sex inherits.  

 

Window To The Womb  Ealing website does not tell expectant women  who are enticed to use their services what happens if a scan reveals possible problems or abnormalities.  On inquiring about this possibility expectant mothers are told they will be quickly referred to ‘a doctor’. For most without private health insurance or very large bank accounts that will be an NHS doctor. Once again private companies take the profit and the NHS  is left to deal with the problem.

 

Window to the Womb registered with the Care Quality Commission  on the 10th March 2015  however as of  the 22nd March 2018  the Care Quality Commission report that  “We have not inspected this service yet.”

 

On a scale unlike anywhere else, Ealing’s health bosses intend to contract out most of the services they run.  The Contract will last for 10 years and is under offer to private health companies or any NHS management team. Whoever wins, it’s a type of privatisation on a massive scale.

 

Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group (the CCG, Ealing’s NHS bosses) have issued figures showing this ten year contract will be worth initially half a billion pounds but possibly reaching 1.2 billion of our NHS money.  We believe this is an outrage – there is no public support for NHS privatisation, yet Ealing seems to be in the front line.

 

There is no explanation of how the running of such a huge contract would be accountable to the public or how there would be any transparency on spending or running of services, nor is there any   evidence of experience in monitoring such a huge contract. Questions to the CCG on any of this are met with silence or evasion.

 

The Health Bosses want to award this 10-year contract to a single provider, who would run all community health services, and some social care too. Community nursing,  palliative care, diabetes, specialist children’s nursing, older peoples services, mental health, physiotherapy, wards at Clayponds Hospital and much more will be included.  The contractor would then be expected to develop these services so that they can somehow ‘substitute’ for hospital beds – something that has never worked anywhere in the world.

 

As we write this, nine NHS Trusts and eight private NHS providers have already shown some interest, including Virgin Care!

This is a disaster – we won’t Stay Silent!  Please support Ealing Save Our NHS campaign to keep our NHS truly public.  Contact your MP and ask them to highlight and publicly oppose what’s happening.  Council elections are coming up – what do the candidates say – put them on the spot :  Questions to Candidates in the Ealing Council Elections

 

As the saying goes – you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone!

 

Does Privatisation make a Difference?  – Here are some recent examples

 

The Health & Social Care Act 2012 opened the doors to private companies to bid to run any NHS service and they have grasped the opportunity to win billions of pounds worth of contracts by undercutting the NHS and worsening the quality of care.

 

The healthcare market that has been created is a huge waste of public money costing us somewhere between £5 and £10 Billion – part of this cost comes from the management & legal costs of the contracting out process and the growing list of failures.

 

It’s a 10 year contract so no going back for more money and a lot can happen in 10 years. So if the single provider is a private company and isn’t making enough money for their shareholders, or if it is a NHS Trust or Consortium and they just can’t afford to run the contract anymore, then they can just pull out and the local NHS has to pick up the bill.  There is plenty of evidence that this can happen but here are a few examples –

 

Collapse of Private Transport Service – NW London:

The ‘Private Transport Service’ which ran patient transport for London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (which includes Ealing Hospital) ceased trading in October 2017. The Trust was given only two days’ notice of the loss of this service causing additional costs for the NHS and considerable distress for patients needing to use the Service to get to and from hospital appointments.

 

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Older Peoples Services Contract:

This was an extremely high profile contract due to its considerable value, worth £700 – £800 million over five years for the provision of older people’s services for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG.  The Contract was eventually won by a consortium of NHS providers called ‘Uniting Care Partnership’ after all private bidders withdrew as there was not enough profit. However Uniting Care Partnership terminated the contract early as it wasn’t financially viable and the NHS was left with unfunded costs of £16 Million which had to be shared by the CCG and the Trusts involved!

 

Hinchingbrooke and Circle:

In January 2015, Circle the private company running Hinchingbrooke Hospital pulled out of the contract after just two years of a ten year contract. The company announcement came just before the publication of a damning report on the hospital from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) however Circle cited financial reasons for pulling out. The contract allowed Circle to withdraw if it had to invest more than £5 million of its own money in the hospital, which looked extremely likely.   

 

Staffordshire Cancer Care Contract:

This was a ten year contract worth over £690million. The CCGs were seeking a single provider to co-ordinate and contract providers for cancer care in Staffordshire. After the problems with the Cambridge & Peterborough Older Persons Contract it was put on hold and restarted in 2017 with only 1 private consortium left led by Interserve whose bid was found not to be financially viable. Although the contract failed to begin it managed to cost the NHS around £840,000.

 

The West Sussex MSK contract

This £235 million contract for provision of musculoskeletal services in West Sussex with Coastal West Sussex CCG was awarded to BUPA and social enterprise CSH Surrey in September 2014. However it never begun once it was determined just how much damage the contract would do to other NHS services in the region. BUPA and CSH Surrey withdrew in Jan 2015 before the contract was signed.

 

Our Hospitals Trust Could be at Risk.

Currently most of the community health services are run by our local NHS Trust, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. If they lost the contract they would also lose about 7% of their income and other services could be at risk. Our NHS staff should be spending their time focusing on patient care instead many hours will have to be spent restructuring services, pouring over spreadsheets and drawing up bids to try and win this contract.

 

As you can see It’s no wonder that Ealing Save Our NHS is worried and opposed to these plans.

 

Please check out our website for more updates as the picture unfolds and our Campaign develops.

Question 1  The Big “Sell Off” of Ealing’s NHS

 

Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group is advertising for a single contractor to run “out of Hospital” services for 10 years.  This contract, tendering out Ealing’s NHS services is worth over half a billion pounds of public money.

 

Do you support or oppose this tendering out and possible privatisation of huge amounts of NHS services in Ealing?  Have the local meetings of your Party discussed this proposal and if so what are their views?

 

If your Party supports this tender of NHS services, how do you believe those who won such a huge contract would be accountable to us, the public?

 

Or, if your party opposes this tendering out of public services, just what has it done about it?

 

Question 2  The Future of Ealing Hospital

 

The plans to cut the blue light A&E and hundreds of beds at Ealing hospital have not substantially changed since they were made 6 years ago?  Do you support those plans, as laid out in “Shaping a Healthier Future”?

 

If your Party supports the plans to somehow replace hundreds of hospital beds with health care in the community, please explain how on earth this this could work as there are so far no examples in the UK or abroad.

If your Party opposes the plans, can you specify what your party has done about it?