What’s happening behind closed doors? – ESON Newsletter 30/05/20

30/05/2020

We hope you are keeping well in these difficult and worrying times.

Despite millions of people showing their solid support for our NHS in so many ways and the absolutely amazing dedication of NHS staff across the Board, the Government agenda of cuts and privatisation is continuing.

Ministers have used special powers to bypass normal tendering. They are awarding big contracts to their favourite private companies and management consultants – without open competition or scrutiny.

Big changes are also afoot, especially in London where NHS bosses are busily drawing up plans for a post Covid-19 NHS, possibly making permanent bed closures and other service changes that were made so that staff could cope with the demands of the virus.

What future for Ealing Hospital?

It has been a rollercoaster over the past few months at Ealing Hospital as staff struggled to cope with the sometimes overwhelming numbers of patients, but without a doubt they did us proud!

Along the way there have been some pretty drastic service changes including the closure of all the operating theatres, suspension of emergency surgery and removal of critical care equipment.

We were told that this was necessary at the time, as Ealing Hospital couldn’t cope with the numbers, and Northwick Park needed extra staff and equipment as it is a major hub for the virus.

Now the peak has passed and plans are being drawn up for a post-Covid-19 NHS, is Ealing getting back the services it has lost? If not, how can a 24-hour A&E safely remain open without the back-up of emergency surgery?

We recently wrote to Chris Bown, Chief Executive of London North West Trust, which manages Ealing Hospital, to ask these questions and express our concerns for the future of Ealing A&E. We believe Ealing A&E is of vital importance for our communities, especially the Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic Communities who have been so badly affected by Covid-19. Read our letter here

Whilst we are pleased to have received an assurance from Mr Bown that the Trust remains “absolutely committed to continuing to provide an open access 24/7 Emergency Department at Ealing Hospital, as we do currently”.

Nevertheless, Hospital staff, campaigners and local politicians remain concerned about the future for the Hospital and A&E, which can’t function fully without onsite emergency surgery, blue light ambulances and a proper complement of ICU beds – none of which the Trust has yet committed to return. In reality yet another major reorganisation is being devised without involvement of either the actual Hospital staff or people from the locality. ESON will continue to argue the case for re-instating emergency surgery and other services and work together with our local MPs and others to keep up the pressure.

Behind closed doors – disturbing plans for a ‘ New Health & Social Care System‘ in London:

Alongside all the blatant privatisation is yet another Government-led re-organisation of the NHS, especially in London. Local CCGs (Clinical Commissioning Groups/ NHS bosses) such as Ealing, are to be pushed aside – merged and controlled at a North West London and London wide level. Many of the coronavirus ‘emergency’ closures of beds, theatres and other NHS services may be made permanent by the new London Leadership under Sir David Sloman.

Locally, it’s not just Ealing Hospital that has lost services. Both of Ealing’s acute Mental Health wards (Hope and Horizon) have been closed too and changes made to GP services, such as virtual appointments becoming the new norm.

We could be facing a ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ Mark 2 on a much bigger scale!

The London NHS plans – ‘Journey to a new Health & Social Care System’ are being rushed through in secret, and only came to light after a key document was leaked to the Health Service Journal and to Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Our sister campaign HAFSON sent the report to magazine ‘the Lowdown’, a brilliant source of research on the NHS.

You can read more about the threat posed to our NHS by these plans here

Why has the supply of PPE been such a disaster?

More than 300 NHS and care workers have now died from coronavirus and many of these deaths were “avoidable with proper PPE”.

Businesses and communities have been ready to help out with vital protective equipment: masks, gowns, visors etc but many Trusts and GPs had to resort to sourcing their own PPE supplies.

The ‘NHS Supply Chain’ –supposedly responsible for procuring and delivering PPE during the coronavirus crisis, turned out to be a privatised and unsynchronised collection of companies. Although technically a part of the NHS, the ‘Supply Chain’ is a complex web of contracts with private companies which all answer to shareholders first and the NHS second.

Immediately upon its formation ‘NHS Supply Chain’ outsourced two major contracts for IT and logistics, and then broke up and outsourced the whole procurement system, by delegating eleven supply areas to various contractors – in the name of “efficiency savings”!

The 5 big players in this supply chain are –

DHL, the parcel delivery company, in charge of finding wholesalers to supply ward based consumables, including PPE kits.

Unipart, responsible for delivering PPE through its £730 million NHS logistics contract.

Deloitte with a series of major NHS contracts – for designing the procurement system in the first place and more recently for managing logistics for PPE and testing centres.

Movianto won a £55 million contract in 2018 to provide a stockpile of equipment, mostly PPE, in case of a pandemic. consumables, including PPE kits.

Logistics, who have been contracted to run a separate PPE channel for NHS Trusts,

You can read the full report here

Also worth reading is this excellent short article by George Monbiot in Guardian

PLEASE ALSO SIGN THE PETITION to end all outsourcing in our NHS and protect NHS Staff here

Could Test and Trace be the same shambles as PPE?

This week, the Government launched its trace and trace system ahead of the planned 1st June date, calling on all citizens to do their ‘civic duty’. The easing of the lockdown and the re-opening of schools is dependent on an effective test, track and trace programme.

Well, for a start the App is not even ready and prior to being tested in the Isle of Wight it failed all the key tests including cyber security, performance and clinical safety. Without the App the system relies on thousands of people physically picking up a phone and tracking down the contacts of those who have reported Covid-19 symptoms and/or have tested positive.

So who is doing the tracing?

Instead of skilled people from Public Health, private company Serco, known for poor quality and low pay, has been contracted to recruit the vast majority of 25,000 contact tracers. They have been given 1 day’s training, by the same people who run NHS 111, and have a script and a list of ‘frequently asked questions’. Specialist queries are expected to be referred to a separate team of 3000 medics or senior nurses. Not very re-assuring!

Kate Ardern, Director of Public Health (Wigan), said “You cannot expect people with no appropriate background knowledge, skills or experience to do this vital job with little training or expert supervision… contact tracing is a skilled job!”

You can read more on this story here in ‘The Lowdown’

‘Fatal Inequalities’ Online Public Meeting – Tuesday 2nd June:

This ‘NHS Staff Voices’ public meeting centres around the effects of inequality and race in the NHS, and in particular, during this pandemic.

Speakers include:

Gary Younge – journalist and campaigner
Dame Donna Kinnair – Royal College of Nursing
Dr Sonia Adesara – Keep Our NHS Public and NHS Staff Voices

Race and inequality have had a significant effect on covid-19 outcomes for workers, with Black and Asian people up to 4 times more likely to die from covid-19 than white people, yet despite this many BAME workers feel unable to demand safer working conditions for fear of disciplinary action or losing their job.

To hear more and join the discussion, please register here:

You are welcome to send any questions you may have for the panel in advance to NHSStaffVoices@gmail.com

READ WHAT INDEPENDENT SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT GOVERNMENT HANDLING OF THE CRISIS:

Independent group of Scientists & health experts speak out:

‘Sage’, the ‘ Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies’, which advises the Government, has been much criticised by some of our leading scientists and health policy experts. David King, a former UK Government Chief Scientist has set up an Independent ‘Sage’ group which has just published its first report.

If you are interested in reading what they think the Government should be doing on Covid-19 – here is a link to their first Report – absolutely fascinating!

NHS Staff Voices interview Professor John Ashton:

Keep Our NHS Public now has a NHS Staff Voice’s group. Their Chair, Alia Butt (psychologist and psychotherapist) recently interviewed public health expert Professor John Ashton CBE, a British doctor and academic, and former Regional Director of Public Health for North-West England, on the government’s mishandling of the Covid-19 crisis.

You can watch it here

Mental health still the poor relation?

So is the Government now providing adequate funding to support our mental health services, already creaking under the strain of cuts to NHS and local authority budgets and now struggling to cope with the added burden of rising demand driven by the pandemic –Answer – No. Instead of the Government providing 24/7 support for frontline workers it is the charities who have come together under the ‘Our Frontline’ banner to provide these services.

You can read more on this story here–

Covid and care homes – why we need to nationalise our care homes:

An excellent article by Roy Lilley, former NHS Trust Chair, writer and broadcaster on health policy. Written for the Telegraph but then spiked and never used….

Thanks for your continued support

The UK Now Has the 4 th Highest Covid-19 Death Rate in the World

Eric Leach

14/05/2020

Deaths/Million of Population

UK: 495

Some countries which are much more densely populated than the UK have much lower Covid-19 deaths/million rates. These include Bangladesh (2), South Korea (5), India (2) and Israel (31). (Source Worldometer, 14 May 2020).

Why has this happened? Who is responsible? Is new leadership now required in the UK?

Covid-19 Care Commissioning/Purchasing/Supply Chaos

Clinical Commissioning Groups, NHS Trusts, NHS England, Local Authorities, care homes and now DHSC/eBay are all purchasing Covid-19 supplies including PPE.

Where is the control? Where is the order? Where is the leadership?

On 1 May 2020, somewhat belatedly, The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) apparently wrote to all NHS Trusts stopping them from purchasing supplies. This includes PPE. I’m sure NHS Trusts are not intentionally stupid. They have been buying PPE themselves because the DHSC/NHS England/CCGs were not commissioning/purchasing/supplying PPE!

The latest supply channel is a joint venture between DHSC and the shopping and auction site eBay. The venture is very new and according to ’Health Service Journal – on 6 May 2020 had supplied just 400,000 PPE items to only 1,400 of the 58,000 UK care service suppliers.

Ealing Council Leader Julian Bell is alleged to have announced in a Unite Zoom meeting on 12 May 2020 that Ealing Council had been successful in purchasing PPE for four West London Councils’ ‘local care services’. Following recognition of this, Councillor Bell said the Council would soon be the purchaser of all PPE for all London Councils’ local care services. All this seems quite odd when one considers that the vast proportion of care/nursing homes are privately owned. Shouldn’t the owners of the homes be expected to provide PPE for their staff? Surely the same logic applies to the vast proportion of domiciliary care staff who are employed by private companies – their employers should surely provide them with PPE, not Local Authorities.

On 15 May 2020 ‘The Guardian’ reported on the shambles at the Government’s outsourced PPE depot run by Movianto. Apparently PPE equipment was being stored in a smoke damaged Merseyside warehouse found to contain asbestos. In late March 2020 the Government ordered Movianto to begin distribution of the £500 million PPE stock. However, because of poor management and staff sickness progress was slow, errors were made and as demand grew apparently it became chaotic. The army was called in to sort it out. It didn’t help that during this period the American parent company sold Movianto to a French company. Questions are being asked as to why DHL lost the contract in 2018 and why Movianto, a loss making company for every year since 2010, had managed to win the £10.5 million/year contract.

Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) Claim Government’s Approach to Them for Covid-19 Has Been ‘Top-down, Uncommunicative and Controlling’

There are apparently 42 LRF’s in England and Wales. They have been tasked by Government to respond to Covid-19. A review by Whitehall, revealed in ‘Municipal Journal’, is very critical of the Government. The leaked report cited withholding vital data and intelligence on the progress of Covid-19. Research was carried out by Nottingham Trent University for the C-19 Foresight Working Group – a cross-party Government committee.

Local Resilience Forums – which most people have probably never heard of – were introduced in 2004 in the Civil Contingency Act to provide the means to those involved in preparedness to collaborate at a local level. There is just one LRF in London (serving 9 million residents!) and it’s based at the London Fire Brigade, London SE1.

Will the Government Mishandle Covid-19 Local Testing/Contact Tracing/Isolation/Quarantining?

Sadly this is likely.

Public Health Professor Allyson Pollock at Newcastle University and a member of the King Independent SAGE team has on numerous occasions emphasised that the Covid-19 national epidemic is not homogeneous. It is in fact hundreds or thousands of local Covid-19 outbreaks that are active in this country – all at different stages of ‘diffusion’.

The key to contact-tracing is local knowledge and meticulous research on the ground. This suggests using Local Authority resources, GPs and the myriad of volunteer groups which already exist in all towns and villages throughout England.

Allegedly Government outsourcer Serco has assembled/is assembling 15,000 tracers (Call Centre staff?) and 3,000 clinical support staff (recent NHS retirees?). ‘Health Service Journal’ reported on 13 May 2020 that much of the national test centre data/results were not being shared with GPs and Local Authorities. Will Deloitte who run these national test centres hand this test data to Serco?

Yet another ex-McKinsey & Co employee is joining the fray and in a top position too. Baroness Dido Harding has been appointed leader of the Government’s Covid-19 Test and Trace Taskforce. Her stint at McKinseys was in the 1980s. However she became notorious for her performance when CEO of TalkTalk for seven years. Her handling of a cyber attack resulted in losses of £60 million, four million customer accounts allegedly hacked, and a loss of 95,000 customers. Baroness Harding also seems to have kept her role as Chair of NHS Improvement. Maybe with the merger of NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSI), the NHSI Chair’s role is effectively redundant.

The Government’s (as yet unnamed) contact-tracing App is still on trial on the Isle of Wight. If it ‘fails’ – on ethical or technical grounds – the Apple/Google App, being used in Europe, is waiting in the wings. And, according to ‘The Times’ of 14 May 2020, there are 43 Covid-19 contact tracing Apps in use worldwide.

National Audit Office (NAO) Describes £8.1 Billion NHS IT/Digital Transition Spending as Inadequate and Confused

+ 54% of NHS Trusts reported that their staff could not rely on digital records.

+ NAO recommends spending 5% of the total annual NHS budget on IT/digital transformation. NHS is spending 2%.

+ Interoperability between new and legacy systems, especially with repeated changes in national strategies has created a fragmented environment.

+ NHS management of digital transformation at a national level is confused.

A New Post Covid-19 Healthcare Plan Being Hatched for London

‘Urgent Action: System Plans for London’ is the title of a 29 April 2020 leaked memo to the five London Integrated Care System (ICS) Chairs and Senior Responsible Officers (SROs). The author is Sir David Sloman, NHS London Regional Director.

The memo asked all these bosses to rapidly review their ICS plans in terms of new Cocid-19 challenges and future care strategies. It also asks them to report against 12 expectations contained in a ‘Journey to a New NHS‘ paper along with a set of slides. They had to reply by 11 May 2020. Why the rush one wonders?

The backdrop to all this is multifarious. Firstly in terms of previous plans we have at least the October 2019 ‘London Vision’, the January 2019 national ‘Long Term Plan’, and the November 2017 ‘London Care Devolution’, and the five London regional October 2016 ‘Sustainability & Transformation’ Plans. In terms of statutory significance the ICSs have no legitimacy at all. In fact in at least one London region (NHS North West London) its ICS will not be formally born until 1 April 2021. (In NHS NWL for example, the only statutory legitimacy lies with the eight CCGs. Ealing’s CCG is strangely quiet at the moment. The last we heard from the Collaboration of the 8 CCGS was that all but Hillingdon CCG were ‘partnering’ with other CCGs. No doubt they are all trying to reduce their combined 2018/19 annual ‘employee benefits’ of some £10 million).

A bit more NHS NWL flavour here is also relevant. In May 2019 NHS NWL outlined there would be 8 ‘Place Teams’, 8 ‘Local Committees’ and 8 Integrated Care Parnerships (ICPs). One year on, one wonders what’s happened to plans for them? Or is planning and strategy a London-wide only approach now?

It really does seem an age away in 2013 when NHS bosses were preaching about local commissioning, by local GPs with local knowledge. Their bible then was the 2012 Health & Social Care Act – which ominously is the existing legislation that is being blatantly ignored in spirit and possibly in actuality.

Now to the content of the memo. A quick glance at the 12 expectations:

How are you going to deal with non-Covid-19 acute elective and non-elective work? In other words how are NHS Trusts going to carry out the jobs they are paid to do?
A consolidation and strengthening of specialist services. Cancer, paediatrics, renal, cardiac and neurosurgery listed. Does this suggest mergers and closures?
Increase web, telephone and video triage. Never mind the quality – it’s cheaper than actually having to travel from home and meet a patient in a clinical ’setting’.
How will you separate emergency Covid-19 from emergency ‘other’. (Given that some emergency other patients are locked into the ‘stay at home’ paradigm and think NHS UCCs and A&E units are awash with the Covid-19 virus).
Develop virtual by default Primary Care and Outpatients. See 3.
Minimise inpatient length of stay and faster Delayed Transfer of Care. See NHS NWL ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ case study – seven years and £1.3 billion spend made little progress on this minimalisation.
Address health inequalities – see similar unmet aspirations like Climate Emergency and clean drinking water for all the 7.7 billion inhabitants in our world.
Same expectation as in 2.
Merge corporate support services and clinical support services. Cost savings here.
A workforce plan. Good luck with that one. Too few doctors, nurses, consultants, mental health staff at all levels, and too few support staff. Too many commissioners.
A plan to ‘join together’ NHS institutions and Local Authorities. With different business models, goals, budgets, culture, politics and a shared desire not to open up financial books to each other – little progress on this front visible over the last seven years. No mention of ‘Integrated Care Partnerships’.
Public engagement including ‘deliberate’ forums (e.g. NHS NWL 4,000 EPIC hand-picked sounding board – which is an attempt at regularly polling a representative sample of the 2.4 million NWL patients).

Revenue and capital cost estimates were asked for. A three phase implementation over 18 months was proposed. But the NHS never meets its timescale projections. A new bit of jargon emerged – ‘London Vision the Touchstone’…….

The 32 London boroughs commission all London’s social care. However it’s clear from comments heard from the London Borough’s of Ealing and Hammersmith that they have not been asked to comment on these NHS ‘Systems Plans for London’. Yet another painful example of the long running disconnect between healthcare and social care.

A final postscript on NHS London supremo Sir David Sloman. Google can’t find anything about his life prior to 2009. In 2017 he was admonished by the Government’s data protection agency for illegally giving details on 1.6 million patients to Google Deep Mind.

Is the Care/Nursing Home Business Model Broken Beyond Repair?

Most care/nursing homes in England are privately owned. There are 17,000 nursing and residential care homes in England housing 400,000 people (NHS England, 2019). A lot of homes are part of care groups both small (e.g. Abbey Healthcare) and large (e.g. Four Seasons). Some are run by charities (e.g. St David’s, Castlebar Hill, W5). Care is commissioned by Local Authorities (LAs). The homes are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Each home has a contract with a local GP practice. Many GP practices are commissioned by NHS England (NHSE). Some GP practices (e.g. the 75 in Ealing) are commissioned by the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). Where local CCGs have been replaced by regional Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) could it be that the succeeding ICS is the commissioner? For over two years now the Department of Health has had social care responsibilities – so the DHSC has overall responsibilities for care/nursing homes. The care/nursing home acronym soup or tangled spaghetti looks like LAs, CQC, GPs, NHSE, CCG, ICS, DHSC.

‘Reuter’s’ data analysis up to 1 May 2020 shows at least 20,000 excess deaths in care homes in England and Wales during the pandemic. Is it any wonder then that when the Covid-19 history books are written one of the most painful chapters will be on unnecessary care/nursing home deaths.

We Have No Clear Idea of the Who, What, Why, Where, When, Which or How of Covid-19

Eric Leach

01/05/2020

Who?

Who can we blame for this in the UK?

Who is infected and who is not infected? We don’t know.

Who can we believe when it comes to guessing a route to a post-Covid-19 world?

What?

What exactly is Covid-19?

What is the ‘right’ approach – herd immunity or flattening the curve? The world jury is still out on that one.

What Covid-19 performance metrics (cases/deaths/vaccines/the ‘R’ number) will trigger lockdown unlock processes?

What long term impacts on people’s health and lives will be caused by weeks/months of social isolation?

Why?

Why did this happen? Malevolent Chinese Government forces at work? ’Wet’ animal markets in China? A plot by Bill Gates for world domination? Take your pick.

Why was the UK Government so unprepared for dealing with a pandemic?

Why did the UK Government seemingly ignore World Health Organisation global pandemic alerts in January and February 2020, and react too slowly in March 2020?

Why do some infected with Covid-19 die? Others are sick and recover? And others apparently display no symptoms whatsoever?

Why did we start testing and tracing and then stop doing it?

Where?

In my body, my house, my street, my town, my city, my country – and in fact everywhere?

When?

When can we all have our lives back?

When will it end? Will it ever ‘end’?

When will all UK citizens be tested for having, not having or having had Covid-19?

When will a Covid-19 vaccine become available?

When will all UK citizens be vaccinated for Covid-19?

When will the Government spout Covid-19 numbers I might believe?

When will I next visit a pub and enjoy a pint with friends?

Which?

Which businesses might survive Covid-19?

Which scientists and academics should we trust with their theories, proofs and evidence?

How?

How will we rid ourselves of Covid-19?

How many people are actually dying from Covid-19 – in hospitals, in care/nursing homes and at home?

How many people have died or are dying of serious non-Covid-19 illnesses/diseases because Covid-19 measures have taken priority over beds, staff and equipment and curtailed treatment/operations?

How long might immunity last after recovery from Covid-19?

How might society change after Covid-19 is brought under control? For better or for worse?

Can We Rely on Anyone’s Numbers?

+ 81,661 tests for Covid-19 carried out in UK on 29 April 2020 (Prime Minister). But 36% were retests, (DHSC)

+ On 30 April 2020 Covid-19 test target (set by Health & Social Care Minister on 1 April 2020) number of 100/000 UK Covid-19 tests/day was not met.

+ 674 people died of Covid-19 in the UK on 29 April 2020 (Prime Minister). But data from all the 11,300 UK care homes will not have been included. It takes some 10 days for ONS to collect and count all deaths recorded on Death Certificates for any one day.

+ As of 28 April 2020 there had been 21,678 Covid-19 deaths in the UK (John Hopkins CSSE). Clearly not accurate, as up to date care home/nursing home/at home deaths not included (ONS).

Covid-19: 17,756 ‘Extra Deaths’

Extra deaths attributable to Covid-19 and the date at which the outbreak took hold is being analysed by Dr Rodney P. Jones of Coventry University. The most recent data is for 17 April 2020 and includes:

UK: 17,756 commenced on 6 March 2020

London: 3,991 commenced on 21 February 2020

‘The unintended consequences of Covid-19 may be worse than first appreciated’.

More at:

http://www.hcaf.biz/2020/Covid_Excess_Deaths.pdf

Mortality monitoring throughout Europe data source:

https://euromomo.eu/

Thanks to Roger Steer of Healthcare Audit Consultants Ltd for this information.

We Need a State Owned UK Care Organisation – Free at the Point of Use

The Covid-19 pandemic is posing the biggest threat to the UK’s survival since World War 2. If we survive Covid-19, we must re-organise ourselves nationally to fight subsequent pandemics and give us all a better chance for sustainable lives, health and happiness.

There must surely be a single business model for delivering care in the UK. A singles state owned and run public service free at the point of use. Care includes Primary healthcare, Secondary healthcare, mental health, community healthcare, social care, care homes, hospices, nursing homes, palliative care, Public Health, GPs, consultants, pharmacies and support staff. All the people and all the bricks and mortar in England, Scotland. Wales and Northern Ireland to be included.

Large London Hospital Rejecst Using NHS Covid-19 Wembley Test Centre

The Royal Free NHS foundation Trust runs the Royal Free Hospital, Barnet Hospital and Chase Farm Hospital. It employs 10,000 staff. In a long article in ’The Guardian’ of 29 April 2020 it was reported that the Royal Free had declined to use the NHS Covid-19 Test Centre set up in the IKEA car park in Wembley. The Royal Free is swabbing its staff at work and sending samples to the Frances Crick Institute for analysis. Reason quoted by the Royal Free for adopting this approach include Wembley Test Centre results having been lost and the hospital having no faith they would get an accurate result. It says the chain of command is opaque and the centre is not run by clinicians but is run by Deloitte – a firm of accountants.

Complaints about Covid-19 test Centres by other NHS Hospital Trusts and NHS staff around the country include five hour queues, delays causing cancellations, leaking test vials, wrongly labelled samples and lost test results.

There was no competitive tendering for contracts to set up and run the 30 Covid-19 UK Test Centres. (This trashes the CCGs procurement requirements of the 2012 Health & Social Care Act). Outsourcers who mopped up these Test Centre contracts include Boots, Serco and Sodexo.

£60,000 ‘Life Assurance Scheme’ for Grieving Families of Front-Line NHS Hospital Staff and Social Care Workers Killed by Covid-19.

A message from the frontline at Ealing Hospital – ESON newsletter 19/04/20

admin

19/04/2020

At this difficult time there are still many positives; news of survivors, our amazing NHS staff and the real sense of community as people pull together. So we were delighted to recently receive a very moving message from Dr Gurj Sandhu of Ealing Hospital which you can read in full a little later.

On the negative side there have been some evident failures of our leaders: on PPE, on testing, on care homes, on delivery of promises and honesty with the public. Of course they have a tough job, but the price of failure is all too clear.

Thankfully there has been continuing pressure on the Government to act from NHS staff, politicians, campaigners and the wider community which we need to keep up.

Next Tuesday 21st April there is a ‘NHS Staff Voices Public Meeting’. NHS Staff Voices is a newly set up part of national campaign ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ and this is their first ever public meeting. It has a great line-up of speakers. It is open to anyone who wants to ‘attend’ and a real chance to hear from the frontline – more details on how to register are below.

A very moving message to Ealing Save Our NHS from Dr Gurj Sandhu;

This letter perfectly sums up why our NHS and its staff hold a special place in all our hearts and no more so then at this time of our greatest need. (The picture above shows our Ealing staff in happier times celebrating the NHS 70th Birthday)

Dear Ealing Save Our NHS,

These have been the strangest of times but what has filled me with immense pride is the way in which NHS staff have galvanised to support each other in a manner that helps us to support our patients. The situation evolved very rapidly before our eyes with wards rapidly being turned into Covid wards and staff constantly being redeployed to the areas of greatest need. There are few distinctions in our roles as we all do what we can in a clinical space once we have donned PPE. Non clinical staff find ways to support clinical staff with an army of volunteers ready to pick up tasks to make our lives easier.

We make sure we share positive stories and celebrate those patients who come off mechanical and non invasive ventilation. We are filled with joy as the elderly pull through their illness and go home with a humble smile. We look out for each others welfare and find ways to console each other, even when 2 metres apart. What was once the energy of manic survival instinct has gradually been replaced by a calmer compassionate energy that only comes from NHS staff pulling together to get through a crisis. We might not have seen this crisis before but we’ve certainly got through others.

We know you have been out there looking out for us and our patients, we see your messages on the roundabouts and the drawings your children send in. We put on the visors you donate, hear you clap, appreciate your thanks and are nourished by your food donations. We thank you all for your unwavering support and look forward to times when we can invite you into your hospital again. In the meantime if you need us we’ll be here.

Best wishes

Gurj

Dr Gurjinder Singh Sandhu, Consultant Infectious Diseases, Ealing Hospital

Thank you Gurj and all your colleagues for all that you have done – we are so grateful!

What’s Going On? Stories from the Frontline – Public Meeting – 21st April

NHS Staff Voices (part of Keep Our NHS Public) has organised its first – ever Public Meeting bringing together some great speakers. They will be joined by Professor John Ashton to discuss the crisis and how things have been managed thus far, to help make sense of what is to come.

7:30PM TUESDAY 21 APRIL ONLINE

You will need to join ZOOM first and then register to watch the Meeting here–

Speakers:

Prof John Ashton, former Regional Director of Public Health
Dr Mona Kamal, Consultant Psychiatrist
Dr Rita Issa, Clinical Fellow GP
Dr Tom Gardener, Junior Doctor currently working in A&E

You can email questions to nhsstaffvoices.konp@gmail.com or get involved live during the meeting’s Q&A session via the chat function on Zoom.

Please sign the petition to support our NHS workers:

The NHS Staff Voices Petition has now reached over 250,000, which is great. If you haven’t signed it please do and circulate widely – lets get it to a million!

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION HERE –

ESON asks Questions of the Trust who manage Ealing Hospital:

In March we wrote to the London North West University NHS Trust Board (LNWH), which manages Ealing Hospital, to ask a number of questions on the provision of PPE & testing for staff and how the Trust were organising services to deal with virus. To date we have not had any response to our questions and have now followed it up, but are not very hopeful of a reply.

A copy of our letter is here

Changes at Ealing Hospital: Some of you may have heard of changes being made to Ealing Hospital and it is of course worrying. However we have been told that the demands of dealing with Covid-19 mean that for now these changes are needed. All Orthopedic services at Ealing and other hospitals in London have been moved to the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital in Stanmore, no emergency or trauma surgery is taking place at Ealing and their ICU beds have been ‘reconfigured’.

Of course this is not the time to query actions taken to deal with the emergency pressures of Covid-19, nevertheless it’s imperative for the future to keep plugging the importance to our communities of our Ealing Hospital, it’s fantastic staff and it’s acute services.

A disturbing Report about delayed treatment and child deaths

Earlier this week we were sent an ‘Incident Log’ drawn up by the North Thames Paediatric Group which covers LNWH, Imperial among others. This very disturbing log documents 14 incidents including two deaths and delayed treatment caused by a combination of bad advice from NHS 111, an overstretched London Ambulance Service and parents afraid to take children to hospital.

Working with Tony O’ Sullivan of Keep Our NHS Public, this story made it in to the ‘Standard‘ and was on the front page of the Guardian. It is pretty shocking!

There is a similar story emerging in relation to people delaying seeking help when they are having a cardiac arrest and cancelled cancer treatments.

It is no surprise that NHS 111 is failing some patients:

Most people probably assume that NHS 111 is indeed run and staffed by NHS Staff but it is actually run by a private company called SITEL UK. Staff in the call centres are paid barely above the minimum wage and there are many stories that instead of social distancing they are working desk to desk. Just as worrying is that staff in some, if not all parts of the country are only getting 90 minutes training to handle the NHS 111 Covid -19 Helpline! Read here.

Care Homes and home care – the forgotten crisis:

On March 27 a desperate plea from the struggling social care sector to Matt Hancock, the Health & Social Care Secretary, made clear that weeks after the endless stream of unrealistic assurances from ministers, there was still an “urgent need” for Government to move faster in making PPE available for the adult social care sector.

The Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Social Services wrote jointly to express their concerns:

“Sufficient supplies that are of acceptable quality are needed immediately. Councils and their provider partners also need concrete assurances about ongoing supplies for the days and weeks ahead.

Of course PPE is not the only problem, many care providers face staff shortages, lack of funds and too few nurses to care for patients being discharged from hospital.

More on this story here

PPE Scandal – the Unipart Way – read the Lowdown

Chief executives, frustrated hospital and other NHS staff who are being left to treat potentially or actually infected patients without the right protective equipment may wonder who to blame: but at the centre of this ongoing fiasco, which has required the army to step in and try to get progress, is yet another botched Tory privatisation.

NHS Supply Chain is the organisation which should be coordinating the distribution of the vital PPE gear, ventilators, supplies of sanitiser and other basics to hospital trusts, GPs and community health providers. But it is manifestly failing in its task.

Technically its part of the NHS and owned by the Secretary of State, but in reality it’s a complex web of contracts at the centre of which is UNIPART – better known for supplying components to the motor industry and clearly they should have stayed there as they are adding to the crisis!

You can read the full story here in the ‘Lowdown’ –

Private hospitals are doing very well thank you

The Government’s deal with private hospitals, who are providing beds and staff to help the NHS cope with coronavirus, has been framed as a significant boost for the NHS. But is it or have they done very well out of it?

This excellent piece from researcher Vivek Kotocha suggests it has been of huge benefit to them.

KONP website to remember Health & Care Workers who have lost their lives:

Keep Our NHS Public has recently launched the first of its weekly updates, remembering the health and care workers who have been lost during the Coronavirus crisis.

They will be continuing to publish these figures every Friday, throughout the crisis, to demonstrate the sacrifice made by our NHS and care staff through their work.

Keep Our NHS Public have published some excellent articles:

’10 ways the Government is making it worse’

The title very much speaks for itself. This is everything that campaigners and others have been thinking and saying over the last 8 years.

John Lister on the Government 13 Billion write –off of NHS debts

A good piece from John Lister which including comments from a tax expert. It seems it is mainly an accounting exercise not costing the Government anything in practice as there is no way that NHS trusts will ever be able to pay back the money anyway. However not one penny of the enormous PFI debt, amounting to billions every year for NHS trusts, is included in the write off!

Government handling of coronavirus a ‘national scandal’

Richard Horton, editor of the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet has publically hit out at the Government’s handling of labelling it a ‘national scandal’. Writing in The Lancet last month he said

“The UK Government’s Contain–Delay–Mitigate–Research strategy failed. It failed, in part, because ministers didn’t follow WHO’s advice to “test, test, test” every suspected case. They didn’t isolate and quarantine. They didn’t contact trace. These basic principles of public health and infectious disease control were ignored, for reasons that remain opaque”

Campaigners around the country have also been repeatedly asking why is the Government not testing, especially NHS staff, when all the evidence from other countries, particularly Germany, is that this has been key in slowing down the spread.

You can read the full article here – definitely worth it

Also very much worth a read is this excellent critical overview of the Governments Strategy by Dr David McKoy Professor of Global Public Health at the Centre for Primary Care and Public Health at Queen Mary University London and a medical doctor.

Fantastic Community help & support here in Ealing:

It has been quite amazing to see our people across Ealing coming together to help neighbours, our NHS and anyone needing help in a huge act of solidarity. People have volunteered in their thousands to shop for others, get prescriptions and distribute food for charities & voluntary organisations. Some local restaurants have donated food and cooked meals in industrial portions for NHS staff and other local businesses have also donated equipment. The list is massive!

If you need help or want to volunteer there are lots of way to do this. The Council has a dedicated website

The Ealing Covid-19 Mutual Aid Group has been doing a fantastic job and now has an impressive thousand volunteers with local Whats App groups across the borough.

To offer your support

To request support

To donate food etc please contact them on ealingmutualaid@gmail.com

We have been busy on both Facebook and Twitter:

Despite ESON not able to be out on the streets we are still very visible on Social Media.

It’s not that difficult to sign up for Facebook or Twitter and then you can read and comment on our posts too.

And of course we will continue to send out our monthly newsletter as well.

Keep on clapping for the NHS and all our carers every Thursday at 8.00pm

Now We Can’t Even Count Properly

Eric Leach

04/04/2020

Apparently all the England and Wales Covid-19 death totals were wrong up until 20 March 2020. On this date the Office of National Statistics (ONS) got involved and added the not-in-hospital Covid-19 deaths to the hospital Covid-19 deaths.

One does wonder just how accurate and consistent is any of this data. Apparently the first UK death certificate which recorded a Covid-29 death was on 28 December 2019. Were there any Covid-19 tests available on that date I wonder? Still suspicions and rumours abound about the accuracy of Chinese Covid-19 death figures especially in the virus source city of Wuhan.

Also does it really matter (statistically) if 400 or 5,000 died yesterday as long as the data collection methodology remains constant so trends can be spotted (eg green shoots or no shoots at all).

Our National Testing Programme for Covid-19 is a Shambles – but Maybe This is Intentional

As of 1 April 2020, just 2,000 out of 500,000 front-line NHS staff had been tested. Out of a UK population of 67,886,011 only 163,194 people have been tested. There are around one million patients registered at the 167 GP surgeries in Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon. Policing these people’s social isolation is a total number of Police (including admin) of 1,100.

This is at such a level of unbelievable incompetence it suggests to me that this is actual Government policy. The ‘Herd Immunity’ approach may still be being pursued by the Government. Herd immunity means letting a large number of people catch the disease and hence develop immunity to it, to stop the virus spreading.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is not in favour of a herd immunity strategy. Some experts say the herd approach is experimental at best and dangerous at worst.

Professor Graham Medley, the Government’s chief pandemic modeller, has broken cover and is advocating ‘Herd Immunity’. ’The Times’ and the ‘Daily Mail’ of 4 April 2020 quote Medley saying that the Herd Immunity approach is the only way out of mass isolation for weeks (months?). He claims mass isolation is leading to mass unemployment, domestic violence, child abuse, food poverty and mental ill health. Decision day for the Government is 13 April 2020 (21 days into lockdown).

‘The First Casualty When War Comes is Truth’

This quote is attributed to Hiram W. Johnson, a US Senator, in 1917. However ‘The Idler’ magazine of 11/11/1758 expressed very similar sentiments.

It was Secretary of State, Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock MP who told the House of Commons on 23 January 2020 that the NHS is fully prepared to deal with any cases of Coronavirus.

When I know I’m being sold to, I become suspicious. On 2 April 2020, Hancock delivered a sales presentation to the nation on TV and radio. He gave us all his word that by 30 April 2020 100,000 Covid-19 tests would be taking place nationally each day. I suspect very few people actually believed him. His boss Boris Johnson MP on 18 March 2020 told us all that we are moving up to 25,000 Covid-19 tests per day and aiming very soon for 250,000 tests per day. I’m unsure whether we can trust any of the Government’s Covid-19 figures but allegedly some 10,000 Covid-19 tests were carried out on 1 April 2020. So, in just 29 days we are going to increase daily testing rates 10 times over? The likelihood of this is on a scale of challenging to impossible.

What was the most excruciating for me last on 1 April 2020 was Hancock thanking the general public, NHS staff and Public Health England over and over again.

Public Health England (PHE) – Hero or Villain?

Set up in 2013, PHE is responsible for ’protecting the nation from public health hazards’. PHE is the Government body responsible for disease testing. It has an annual budget of £4.5 billion and it employs 5,500 people.

On 21 February 2020, PHE declared that Corvid-19 posed only a ’moderate risk’. At that time there were 2,236 Covid-19 deaths and 75,465 Covid-19 cases in China.

There are press reports of PHE shunning co-operating offers for testing support from leading UK scientific organisations. These bodies include Oxford University Sir William Dunn School of Pathology Francis Crick Institute and Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham.

As of 2 April 2020 only 2,000 of the 500,000 frontline NHS staff had been tested. There are just too many stories of NHS staff driving miles and queuing at a PHE test centre only to be turned away because they had not made an appointment.

If the Government’s covert approach is to ramp up testing slowly – then PHE is a hero. If, in fact, the Government does want to test 100,000s daily than PHE is a villain.

242 PHE staff earn £100,000+/year. Yvonne Doyle, PHE London Director, earns £275,500/year.

159 Corvid-19 Deaths at London North West Healthcare NHS Trust Hospitals (LNWH)

LNWH has registered more Corvid-19 deaths in the UK than any other NHS Trust. These deaths took place at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Northwick Park and St Mark’s Hospitals. This figure is massively larger that of any other NHS Trust.

I suspect most of the LNWH deaths took place at Northwick Park Hospital (although rumour has it that least 5 deaths were at Ealing Hospital).

Why has this happened at hospitals in Brent, Ealing and Harrow? Corvid-19 cases’ number are high in Brent (321), Ealing (265) and Harrow (251). The towns are 3rd, 7th and 8th highest out of the 32 London Boroughs (29 March 2020 PBE data).

But no-one can or should ignore the recent NHs hospital past in these three towns. From 2012 to 2019 the disastrous NHS NWL ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ programme ripped beds, functionality, staff and the heart out of Secondary healthcare. Huge debts were racked up and management walked (or were ‘pushed’). The recently departed LNWH Chief Executive announced her departure seven months in advance. Her very recent replacement is a one year interim. The departed LNWH Chair left at very short notice and his replacement is a part-time 70 year old auditor.

Hancock Helps Pharmacies with £300 Million

On 2 April Matt Hancock threw out a short lifeline for Pharmacies. With many (all?) GP surgeries closed to walk-in patients, it’s clear that patients are walking into Pharmacies. NHS England has been promoting Pharmacies for some time now as an alternative to GP surgeries. The lack of GPs and increasing numbers of elderly patients were two of the reasons for this.

Local Pharmacies tell me of increasing numbers of customers. Patients and Pharmacies talk about drug shortages and angry confrontations at Pharmacies. The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) says the network of Pharmacies is ‘financially extremely fragile’. The NPA says there has been a surge in demand for prescription medication. This has added to pressures caused by the NHS drugs tariff being considerably lower than the prices Pharmacies pay to suppliers.

Missed Opportunities: October 2016 to July 2019

Cygnus, October 2016

The three day Cygnus exercise demonstrated NHS hospitals could not cope with a major flu outbreak. The Government report on Cygnus has never been published.

UK Biological Security Survey, 2018

This survey report addressed the UK’S preparedness to deal with a pandemic. It stated ‘….we may with a pandemic fail to maximise or to tackle issues as quickly as we need to’. The survey results were ignored by the Government.

July 2019

A Government Inquiry into preparing for emerging infectious diseases was postponed due to Brexit debates.

Protect People’s Lives, Health and Wellbeing By Preventing Construction Workers Travelling to Work

Eric Leach

27/03/2020

The Government must act NOW to protect people from self-harming and potentially harming their loved ones by leaving their homes and travelling to perform non-essential work. For example travelling to build luxury flats for foreign investors to buy is not essential work. It’s just not worth anyone risking their lives, health and wellbeing and the sustainability of their loved ones.

However if cash is not quickly made available to these ‘stopped’ travellers so they can feed their families and pay their essential bills, surely there is a real risk of looting, muggings, break-ins, rioting and public disorder. Not to mention mental health problems especially involving substance abuse. This risk is high anyway as allegedly over 500,000 new claimants (who have been put out of work by Covid-19) are now trying to get Universal Credit (UC). New UC claimants have to wait five weeks for any cash so all 500,000+ of them will apply for emergency loans. Organised nationally (like Covid-19 commissioning – see below) these loans will be slow arriving (think Covid-19 test kits and protective clothing here). Will this result in rapid cash? I think not. The possibility of imminent chaos is frighteningly on the cards.

No Clinical Commissioning for Covid-19 by NHS North West London (NWL) CCGs

The March 2020 report by the outgoing NHS NWL Accountable Officer Mark Easton makes no mention at all of Covid-19. The report, dated 25 March 2020, would have been ’presented’ at the Ealing CCG Governing Body meeting (now cancelled) on that date. Just what is a CCG entity for if it’s not commissioning for Covid-19? The Ealing CCG Chair’s March 25 2020 report also makes no mention of Covid-19.

With 100s of patients dying, 1,000s infected and 10,000s thrown out of work by Covid-19 – how can local and regional NHS commissioning bosses be doing nothing about Covid-19? Well, the only logical assumption is Covid-19 commissioning is being done – very badly – by national Government.

So it’s the Government which is directly to blame for the non-arrival locally of Covid-19 test kits, and Covid-19 protective clothing for care staff and the dearth of Covid-19 ventilators and ICU beds.

The 2012 Health & Social Care Act, so hated by many of us, did actually set up local healthcare commissioning entities. Not only are these structures being variously unpicked this year and next year and replaced with regional Integrated Care Systems – they have been completely ignored for Covid-19 commissioning. One does wonder whether this genius thinking emanates from Dominic Cummings or perhaps from the wunderkinder at McKinsey & Co.

And don’t tell me the Government wasn’t warned about what was to come. On 30 January 2020 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Respiratory challenges for sufferers were also identified and announced by WHO in January 2020.

Where are the CCGs and ICSs Nationally in the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Lots of bosses and experts quoted on TV, radio and national newspapers. NHS Trust and hospital bosses, ICU Leads, doctors, Royal Colleges, BMA, NHS Providers, academics, nurses, GPs and patients – but no local or regional commissioning/purchasing bosses. I have yet to see or hear a CCG or Integrated Care System (ICS) boss being interviewed or quoted. Surely these are folks being paid £100,000/year to commission/purchase healthcare and social care services. Are these folks quietly in the background attempting (and possibly failing) to maintain an adequate level of NHS non-Covid-19 commissioning/purchasing?

Where are the Covid-19 Test Kits?

Johnson and Hancock keep telling us on TV that the tests kits are coming. But also on TV, radio, social media and blogs we hear they have not arrived.

Do you Know Anyone Who Has Been Tested for Covid-19?

No – me neither. We don’t know exactly who has Covid-19 and who has recovered from it. Horror stories are emerging of NHS hospitals with up to 50% sickness absenteeism. No-one knows if staff are Covid-19 sufferers or have other non-Covid-19 ailments.

We Have Absolutely No Idea of the Number of UK Residents Who Have Contracted Covid-19

‘The Times’ helpfully publishes each day the number of Corvid-19 case recorded by UK Local Authorities. However the data is about as useful as a chocolate teapot as so few people have been or are being tested.

Where is the Covid-19 Protective Clothing?

Johnson and Hancock keep telling us it’s ordered and that they are having problems with logistics. The reality appears to be a chronic shortage of even barely adequate Covid-19 protective clothing. NHS staff are having to risk their lives in treating Covid-19 patients without appropriate protective clothing. Anecdotally healthcare and social care staff are setting up their own charities to buy Covid-19 protective clothing. Staff are visiting DIY stores (if open) to buy (possibly inadequate) industrial protective clothing. Staff are even building their own face masks, especially those with full face ‘splash’ screens.

GP Surgeries are Closing Their Doors – Pharmacies are being Flooded with Patients

This is putting Pharmacists and their staff at risk and under pressure. Seemingly their commissioner NHSE/I /DHSC appears to be doing little or nothing to help in terms of protective clothing, testing regimes and kits – or even sympathy.

How will the 560,000+ NHS Volunteers Be Organised?

Surely not by central Government. And what Covid-19 protection will they be given and who will give it to them? It’s obviously sensational that so many citizens have volunteered. But if national Government’s organising of testing, protective clothing, ventilators and adequate ICU beds is anything to go by, it could be a frustrating time for these wonderful, altruistic citizens.

Where is the Covid-19 Leadership?

No – not Professors. This is no academic puzzle. No – not scientists. This is no Biology class. No – not management consultants. In my region McKinsey & Co were paid at least £34 million for NHS strategy advice (leadership even) which proved to be disastrously wrong and led to over £250 million being wasted.

This is a national and international emergency not seen since WW2. Where is our Winston Churchill? I’m sorry but Boris Johnson does not fit the bill, nor does Matt Hancock. And Sir Simon Stevens seems to have completely disappeared!

Who Must Share Responsiblity For NHS NWL Being Run Down 2012 – 2019?

It really is now time during quiet reflection in social isolation to name names of the sponsors and flag wavers for the 2012 ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ (SaHF) and the 2016 Sustainability & Transformation Plan (STP). Before we do this roll call, let’s remember what SaHF/STP did to ill-prepare north west London for the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic:

+ Reduced bed numbers

+ Downgraded and demoralised Central Middlesex, Charing Cross, Ealing and Hammersmith NHS District General/ ‘Major’ Hospitals

+ Difficulties in hiring permanent staff

+ From September 2014 to 2019 NHS NWL Accident & Emergency performance was often amongst the worst performing in England

+ Wasted anything between £260 million to £1.3 billion

+ Creating enormous NHS NWL deficits. For NHS NWL CCGs the deficit is £90 million. For the major NHS NWL Trust Hospitals it’s £164 million.

Rollcall

+ Signatories to 2012 SaHF:

CCG Chairs

Dr Ethie Kong, Dr Ruth O’Hare, Dr Mark Sweeney, Dr Mohini Parmar, Dr Tim Spicer, Dr Amol Kelshiker, Dr Ian Goodman, Dr Nicola Burbidge

Many of the above earned over £600,000 2012-2019. Some are still in post.

Consultation Document Cheer Leaders

Dr Mark Spencer and Jeff Zitron

Chief/Accountable Officers:

Rob Larkman, Clare Parker, Mark Easton

The star earner here was probably Rob Larkman. In his swan song year of 2017/18 his pocket money was £250,000.

2016 STP Co-Conspirators

Tracey Batten and Carolyn Downs

In 2016/17 Tracey Batten earned £295,000.

NHS England Bosses

David Nicholson 2011 – 2014

Sir Simon Stevens 2014 – 2019

Secretary of State for Health & Social Care

Jeremy Hunt MP 2012 – 2019

Lead Management Consultants

McKinsey & Co

Dr Penny Dash, Senior Partner Europe, 2013 – 2019

During 2010 – 2017 The company billed NHS NWL £34 million

Other Management Consultants

During 2010 – 2017 they billed NHS NWL £38 million.

Please sign the Petition to support our NHS Workers #clapforourcarers

admin

22/03/2020

Although we won’t be having meetings or street stalls over the coming months, we haven’t stopped campaigning and will continue to keep you updated.

TOP of our list is to support our wonderful NHS Staff at Ealing Hospital and elsewhere as much as we can.

Very worrying is the failure of the Government to test all NHS workers leaving many forced to self-isolate, even though they may not have the virus. So we need to lobby the Government by whatever means we can to test all NHS workers now!

One of the best things you can do now is to sign the Petition below and circulate it to everyone you can and spread the word.

Please also read on for some great messages, interesting news and updates….

**SIX Demands from NHS workers to help them tackle Cornovirus**

It’s clear that an urgent intervention is needed on the government’s Coronavirus response. Despite the massive threat posed by the pandemic, Boris Johnson isn’t doing what’s needed to support our health workers as they confront this crisis. This is doubly alarming given that our NHS is going into action following a decade of under-funding, under-staffing, and undermining from Conservative-led governments.

Keep Our NHS Public, (to which we are affiliated) in conjunction with other groups has launched a new petition putting six key demands to the government. The demands are:

Covid-19 testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) must be available for all NHS and social care staff now
Those relying on social care (or ‘Direct Payments’) must be given immediate support if carers go sick
NHS support staff (including those outsourced) must receive at least living wage, paid sick leave for illness or self-isolation and an increase in statutory sick pay
Bring private health resources into public service without compensation to fight COVID-19 and aid NHS response. It’s a disgrace that private hospitals are being paid £2.4 million per day to rent their beds!
Make all information that the Government is basing its strategy on wholly available for public scrutiny
An immediate end to legislation enforcing eligibility checks and charging in the NHS, including those related to residency status or national origin, allowing all patients to use the NHS without fear.

Please sign and share the petition – link here –

Ealing Hospital still here to help us!

When we started campaigning all those years ago against the ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ plans that would have closed Ealing and Charing Cross A&Es and hundreds of beds, we had no idea that it would be such a life and death battle.

We recently received this moving message from a health worker at Ealing Hospital speaking about the defeat of those closure plans, which we thought we would share with you all.

“What a good thing it is that Ealing Hospital is able to be here in one of the darkest times as we face as a nation.

I can’t help but feel that had their ridiculous plans completely gone through and they had closed us down, then there is absolutely no doubt there would’ve been more deaths.

The hospital is rising beyond expectations; it is dealing with this outbreak. The fantasy idea of GPs dealing with everything simply isn’t possible: GPs can’t see most patient’s face-to-face right now but the Ealing hospital doors are open day and night …”

Fantastic to know that Ealing’s staff are rising to the challenge; our heartfelt thanks go out to all of them!

A conversation with Sir Amyas Morse – Chair, LNWH Trust

Last Thursday a few of us from ESON had a long telephone conversation with Sir Amyas Morse, the new Chair of London North West University Healthcare Trust, which includes Ealing Hospital.

We discussed at length our concerns about the chipping away of services at Ealing Hospital and the lack of a proper plan for the future of the Hospital, which needs to be resolved. He agreed there needs to be clear plan for Ealing Hospital for both the public and the staff working there and told us he has been raising this too. He said it might take a while to come back to us with their proposals for the Hospital but he promised to do this as soon as practically possible.

Unfortunately he was unable to answer our questions on the Trust strategy to deal with coronavirus patients, but he did offer to act as a conduit for our questions and to possibly provide some briefings.

We are grateful for him taking the time to listen and respond to our concerns.

Hammersmith Hospital Urgent Care Centre closed for safety reasons:

At 8.00am on Friday 20th March the Urgent Care Centre (UCC) at Hammersmith Hospital was closed. The reason given is that Hammersmith Hospital is unable to screen and segregate patients so must close. After explaining that Charing Cross is screening and segregating possible Covid-19 patients at the front door, the local CCG (NHS bosses) say in their press release that:

“The urgent treatment centre at Hammersmith Hospital has neither the space nor the clinical capacity to segregate patients at the front door in this way. Charing Cross also has an emergency department in case a patient is taken seriously ill.”

Health campaigners have always maintained that useful as UCCs were in streaming emergency patients, they had never been shown to be safe unless co-located with a proper A&E. Unfortunately we are all finding out how true that is the hard way. A big blow for the people in that area who now have a difficult journey to either Charing Cross or St Marys (thanks to Hammersmith & Fulham Save Our NHS for the information). Fortunately our UCC is co-located next to Ealing A&E where suspected Covid 19 cases are being isolated.

Northwick Park runs out of critical beds:

Many of you may have heard on the national media that Northwick Park became the first hospital to ‘declare a critical incident’, in that it ran out critical care beds and had to call on other North West London Hospitals to take patients.

The critical incident status has now been stood down, thanks to the help from the other hospitals, but is very worrying at such an early stage. At present Ealing Hospital, which is not a major centre for treating Covid -19, seems to be coping and is no doubt extra busy picking up some of the critical cases not able to go to Northwick Park.

**Clap for our carers – Show your support for the NHS**

A CAMPAIGN has been launched for people to take part in show their gratitude to NHS employees working tirelessly during the Coronavirus outbreak. The Clap For Our Carers, or #clapforourcarers, campaign will see people across the country applaud the NHS workers from their homes.

This is to show appreciation for doctors, nurses, GPs and every other NHS workers.

You can join the ‘CLAP for our Carers’ on March 26 at 8pm.

People joining are asked to applaud from their front doors, gardens, balconies and windows, keeping a safe distance from other people.

This has already been done in countries such as Spain, France and the Netherlands.

Keep well and safe everyone.

Coronavirus and the NHS – Ealing Save Our NHS response

admin

13/03/2020

Where to start? It’s strange times indeed.

In this Newsletter we have a big focus on the Coronavirus, as well as the Budget, local NHS bosses being taken to court and the threat of more cuts at Ealing Hospital.

Please read on….

Coronavirus and the NHS

On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation finally declared a global pandemic.

After a decade of austerity, the NHS is woefully unprepared for a scenario similar to that of Italy. There is currently a staffing shortage of more than 100,000 workers; A&E waiting times are at the worst ever; bed occupancy is at 95%; and yet NHS bosses continue to argue that they don’t need more beds because community care will make up for the shortfall, even though these services are in complete disarray!

What the coronavirus pandemic shows is that it is not enough to plan for minimum need. The NHS needs funding which can enable it to deal with national emergencies.

It is also the clearest proof of why publically provided healthcare is not just desirable, but an absolute necessity in order to ensure the health of all.

The private sector, which offers health coverage only to those who can afford it, plays no role in securing the health of society as a whole. Public health is a social responsibility and needs therefore to be organised and financed by the whole of society.

However the lack of capacity in the NHS to deal with coronavirus means the private sector will be asked to help and won’t be expected to forego any profits!

All the more reasons for Ealing Save Our NHS and other campaigners to keep on fighting for a properly resourced NHS that can cope with all eventualities and an end to privatisation.

Did the Budget deliver?

This was expected to be very much a Budget to help the NHS, councils, employers and society as a whole with deal with implications of the coronavirus. So did it deliver?

Caroline Molloy, health campaigner & editor of OurNHS, doesn’t think so. She says it is not just about the extra money promised for NHS, councils and other public bodies, but also about providing safety nets for people to afford to stay at home and removing barriers for migrants from seeking help.

In Ireland the Government have increased sick pay to £266 per week and made it available to all who need it. Contrast that with the UK Government who has only agreed to pay Statutory Sick Pay of £94.25 to those who are eligible. Millions of self-employed, part time and zero-hours workers won’t even qualify for that. They simply can’t afford to ‘self-isolate’.

Hidden away in the Budget is a big hike in the ‘NHS surcharge’ from £400 per to £624 per adult and £470 per child, which many migrants including NHS workers must pay to retain eligibility to use the NHS. It will also extend to European nationals from January next year and is, of course, on top of their NI and tax! With all the massive shortages of staff in the NHS this move is really shameful.

You can read more on this story here:

Street Stall – this Saturday 14th March – West Ealing:

This Saturday there will be an Ealing Save Our NHS Stall outside Sainsbury’s In West Ealing from 11.00-1.00pm. We will be giving out a short statement on coronavirus and continuing to gather signatures for our petition to restore services to Ealing Hospital. If you can join us for an hour or so you will be most welcome.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS & NHS NEWS –

Our local Acute Trust has 2nd worst ‘deficit in the country:

London North West University Healthcare Trust (LNWH), which runs Ealing Hospital, is in a dire financial state with a forecasted deficit of nearly £92 million. Apparently they had agreed a plan for an £82 million deficit, so they are £10 million worse off. Even to keep to this whopping amount they will have to borrow £10 million (from the Government which will charge them interest), thus adding to the loans they already struggle to pay back, while they are expected to somehow keep cutting costs!

How can a NHS Trust be in deficit? After all it’s not a business but unfortunately they are expected to act like one. Instead of just getting funding to look after patients based on actual need, LNWH and all other Trusts have to agree a business-style contract each year with the local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs – NHS bosses). This means that Trusts have to agree to deliver services for a defined amount of money. The problems begin when the money paid doesn’t meet the demand for services.

So what do local NHS bosses in Brent, Ealing & Harrow do when LNWH treats more patients then agreed by them – It expects the Trust to cover a chunk of the cost!. According to a recent article in the Health Service Journal, the refusal to fully reimburse LNWHT for treating extra patients added an extra £5.4 million to their deficit and rising!

You can read the HSJ article here:

The Trust is now in a desperate search for more ‘savings’ and unfortunately Ealing Hospital, without a proper plan for its future, makes easy pickings.

ESON opposes theatre closure:

The hunt for savings to bring down the LNWH growing deficit means that proposals to close Ealing’s operating theatres at night from 10.00pm – 8.00am have been stepped up and are to be ‘consulted’ upon – we all know what that means.

We all fought to save Ealing Hospital A&E as a 24 hour comprehensive service and taking away acute surgery at night would undermine that. The idea that emergency cases could be diverted in ambulances or transferred from Ealing to Northwick Park Hospital during the night is extremely dangerous and it puts cutting the deficit above patient care.

Ealing Save Our NHS wrote to London North West University Healthcare Trust (LNWH) earlier this month opposing any plans to close Ealing’s operating theatres overnight. In response to our letter Jacqueline Docherty, Chief Executive of the Trust claimed, ‘there are no definite plans to close Ealing’s theatres overnight and no formal decisions have been made’. But then she added they may have to make some ‘unpalatable decisions’.

Our opposition and arguments to keep our theatres open have been clearly laid out and have been followed up by local MPs and politicians.

If, as the Chief Executive says in her letter, our points will be taken in to consideration, then there should be no grounds for any closures!

The Trust response and our original letter are here.

Private Company sues Ealing and other local health bosses:

In yet another example of why private companies shouldn’t be allowed into our NHS, InHealth, who up to last year were making millions by providing Ealing & 4 other CCGs with community diagnostic services, have taken the CCGs to court, for awarding the contract to another private provider – Healthshare!

The contract is worth £15.6 million over 5 years, so it comes as no surprise InHealth won’t easily let it go! InHealth are worth £165 Million before taxes, so they are a big player in the diagnostic world. In the free-for-all system that now operates in the NHS, why wouldn’t companies like Healthshare want to move in on some easy profit.

Ealing Save Our NHS believes the NHS should never be using private companies anyway. How much money could be saved if Hospital Trusts were given the money to pay for the equipment and do all the diagnostics themselves. It would also be so much better for patients to not to have to travel.

This court case illustrates that private health companies will stop at nothing in their own interest, including dragging the NHS through the courts. It also means that the NHS has to look over its shoulder and constantly consult lawyers instead of focusing on health.

You can read more on this story here

Latest evidence shows – It’s a fact – austerity worsens health:

Cast-iron evidence from Professor Sir Michael Marmot proves a decade of austerity has done serious harm to the nation’s health and well-being and that year on year rise in life expectancy has now stopped!

In February 2019, Professor Marmot said- “Last year we pointed out that life expectancy had stopped increasing. Something that had gone on for more than 90 years, an increase of about 1 year every 4 years. In 2011 it slowed down nearly to a halt. Life expectancy as a measure of health, tells us a great deal about how we are doing as a society, and the inequalities in health tell us even more about society”.

Over the last year NWL NHS bosses who hold all the purse strings have been desperate to cut their deficit, claiming that GPs are unnecessarily referring people to hospitals and leading to a big increase in unplanned admissions to hospitals. We say that the real reason for such increases is the worsening of health among the poorest and most deprived communities and this report absolutely nails our arguments.

There is a very good summary from Keep Our NHS Public and a link to the full report –

ESON is very keen to do more work on deprivation, inequalities and the impact of charging on migrant communities. If this is something that would interest you – please get in touch

Will the Coronavirus Epidemic Expose The Government’s Foolishness in Abandoning Prudent Contingency Planning?

Eric Leach

10/03/2020

With no spare hospital beds, hospital doctors, GPs, consultants, nurses or support staff of all types – the NHS is ill-prepared for any unexpected spike in illnesses – never mind one based on a new virus with no vaccine. With Local Authorities having been starved of funds over the last 10 years, the level of Public Health services available locally is akin to a small plaster failing to stem the blood from a major gushing wound. Mental Health and Social Care services (in Ealing for example) can hardly cope now, so sadly if the epidemic strikes hard, suicides, self-harm and paranoia will ramp up.

Given the worst case – and following Japan’s and Italy’s policy – all schools in England could close down. People may be loathe to travel on planes, tube trains, trains or even to leave their homes. In fact the tube and bus networks could be shut down. Industry and commerce could slow down considerably.

Bringing aged ex-NHS staff out of retirement might be useful or in fact practical in a few cases but maybe bigger challenges will be staffing levels, the financial viability of care homes /nursing homes and palliative care (80+% private) and sustainable care for the elderly infirm.

However all this could be scare mongering. The shape and size of the Coronavirus impact on the upcoming budget might panic people or might be seen as Coronavirus a convenient excuse for more austerity.

Collaboration of NHS North West London (NWL) Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) Meeting on 20 February 2020

31 NHS executives crammed themselves into too small a room in Uxbridge. Some 10 or so members of the public just squeezed into the back of the meeting. This informal, non-statutory group spent almost two hours mostly listening, but sometimes discussing, NHS NWL issues. The issues included assurance, strategic objectives, planning, quality and finance. These folks are loosely responsible for £3+ billions to be spent 1 April 2020 to end March 2021 on healthcare and social care services for over two million people. Also discussed was the commissioning of a paediatric glucose monitoring system diabetes Type 1 children’s device. This discussion topic seems as unlikely as discussing the colour of the shoes of the accused in a murder trial.

Some surprising ‘facts’ emerged:

+ NHS NWL says its Long Term Plan (LTP) will not require sign off by NHS England/NHS Improvement (NHSE/I). This is very hard to believe. It’s still in draft form some 14 months since the national LTP was published. With 2012 NHS NWL Shaping a Healthier Future (SaHF) abandoned a year ago and the 2016 NHS NWL Sustainability & Transformation Plan side-lined by the 2019 national LTP, surely NHS NWL is currently ‘flying blind’.

+ Dr Penny Dash, newly crowned head of the NHS NWL integrated Care System (ICS), has apparently already begun attending NHS NWL meetings. One wonders whether she is still the European healthcare boss of McKinsey & Co. Apparently she will soon begin to work part-time for NHS NWL and will curtail ‘most of her interests in McKinsey & Co’. This casual indifference to conflict of interest is only compounded by the knowledge that NHS NWL paid McKinsey & Co £34,680,896 million (up to November 2017 on public record) for management consultancy advice on the disastrous 2012 – 2019 NHS NWL SaHF project. The fact that the formal NHS NWL ICS supremo role only becomes ‘live’ (albeit informally) on 1 April 2021 just seemed to be lost on the 31 senior NHS NWL executives present.

+ There is no development plan for Ealing Hospital. I know this as I specifically asked this question. Outgoing NHS NWL Accountable Officer Mark Easton passed on the question and handed over to Dr Mohini Parmar, ECCG Chair. Her answer was quite forgettable waffle.

+ The only NHSE capital grants are for building works at Hillingdon and St Mary’s Hospitals. (On 10 February 2019 the ‘Sunday Times’ estimated the combined urgent repair bills for these two hospitals was £309 million.)

+ The ECCG Managing Director failed to appear at this meeting. This was the third consecutive public meeting /meeting in public she has failed to attend. At none of these meetings was any explanation forthcoming for her absence. As she costs the public purse some £150,00/year surely some clues about her absence are in order.

Johnson Admits He Has No Plan for Social Care

The Prime Minister’s big lies continue in the care sector. Johnson famously attached himself to the infamous ‘£350 million per week for the NHS when we leave the EU’ mantra in 2016. Even more recently his free car parking in NHS hospitals is turning out not to be a universal truth either.

Matt Hancock MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has recently written to all MPs and Peers in the House of Lords wanting views re social care to be shared. This is really quite ‘rich’ given the failed promises of a Government Green Paper/White Paper/any coloured paper stretch back over two years with six failed publication dates.

Worryingly social care statistics include:

+ 122,000 staff vacancies

+ 1.4 million people going without any care

+ 143,000 older people face catastrophic lifetime costs of £100,000 or more

+ Local Authority bosses predict the funding gap for services of almost £6.5 billion by 2025.

The Government, clearly now desperate, is seeking cross-party talks to tackle the social care crisis – but not until May 2020!

NHS North West London’s EPIC ‘Fiddles While Rome Burns’

‘Engage Participate Involve Collaborate’- EPIC – is NHS NWL’s latest time and money waster. EPIC self-describes itself as ‘leading edge, paradigm-shifting approach to resident engagement’. It’s quite worrying to imagine that NHS bosses actually believe this to be true.

A 6 March 2020 NHS NWL paper presented at the North West London Joint Health Overview Scrutiny Committee Meeting on 9 March 2020 in Twickenham treats us to 2,500+ words on this NHS England £10,000 grant funded initiative. Launched in December 2019, EPIC is a 12-15 month programme. At its heart are 4,000 residents who have been chosen as a representative sample of residents/patients across the 2+ million in north west London. Not only is this group to be used as a ’sounding board’ for NHW NWL commissioning and service delivery process changes/improvements, EPIC expects it to ’co-produce’ them. Astonishing. No doubt some of the 17 or so public relations staff still employed at NHS NWL are beavering away on EPIC.

Dubious EPIC ‘Partners’

One big ‘own goal’ in EPIC is the major role given to Healthwatch. In Ealing and Hounslow Healthwatch is a busted flush as their secondary paymasters are their local CCGs. You just can’t hold NHS institutions to account if they are paying you money. Healthwatches across England are also compromised in attempting to hold public health, social care and integrated healthcare and social care services to account as their primary paymasters are their Local Authorities.

Another bloomer is employing the Consultation Institute (CI). I visited them in Peterborough in 2013. They are an interesting bunch but their credibility was completely blown when they ‘blessed’ the seriously flawed 2012 NHS NWL ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ engagement and public consultation process.

And let’s not use language sloppily. Healthwatch and the CI are just hired hands in EPIC.

NHS NWL Engagement and Public Consultation Track Record 2012 to 2019

Frankly this has been very poor. Campaigning groups did their research, analysis and trumpeting over and over again (2012-2019) about the flawed nature of SaHF but were consistently ignored. The question must be then – will EPIC improve on this? In 2019 NHS NWL produced its draft NHS NWL Long Term Plan (LTP). Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) produced surely one of the most detailed critiques of the draft LTP. ESON summitted this 2,400+ word document to NHS NWL in October 2019. As of 10 March 2020, ESON had received no response from NHS bosses. So much for engagement and public consultation. So much for ’dialogue’ which EPIC bangs on about.

Motherhood and Apple Pie

+ Audit of public engagement

+ Learn and build on existing good practice

+ Involvement Charter

+ Community voices

These are surely just displacement activities, when in fact there has been no meaningful engagement; there are no examples of good practice; the charter will have no teeth; and the existing knowledgeable community voices are being ignored by EPIC and are being excluded from EPIC.

ESON, Brent Patient Voice and Hammersmith & Fulham Save our NHS have all had their applications to join EPIC ignored (rejected?). Activist members of these groups have been researching, writing and campaigning on behalf of their residents for eight years. For EPIC to ignore them completely devalues the ‘paradigm-shifting’ approach.

Reality Check

In NHS NWL there are chronic shortages of doctors, nurses, consultants and support workers of all types. There are major shortages of hospital beds. Mental health and social care services are very thin on the ground.

It is almost too insulting for words to contemplate a horde of NHS NWL public relations folks spending public money ‘prosecuting’ EPIC when the debt levels and consequent cost cutting activities across the region – in commissioning and in service delivery – are immense. Never mind the, at best, enormous pressures Coronavirus will place on primary, secondary, community healthcare, public health and social care services.

I plan to gate-crash the next EPIC meeting on 1 April 2020 – that is assuming that NHSE/DHSC allows the meeting to go ahead.

In reviewing EPIC I must declare an interest. From 1983 to 2004 I ran my own public relations company in what is now called the Tech industry.

500,000 Police Call-Outs to Deal With Mental Health Issues in 2019

Think tank Parliament Street has disclosed that the Police’s dealing with mental health incidents has increased by 20% since 2016. The Metropolitan Police force recorded the highest call-out numbers at 39,584. This works out at over 100 call-outs every day in London in 2019. For years the Police have been pleading that they should not be the ones to be first responders for mental health problems.

NHS England (NHSE) Hires UnitedHealth for £7 Million to ‘Rank’ Patients

The ‘Daily Mirror’ (23 February 2020) published this story. UnitedHealth of America is a $242 billion revenue private healthcare company. NHSE has asked UnitedHealth to rank patients into high, medium and low risk groups. It’s a nine month programme operating in Dorset, Berkshire, Cumbria, Lancashire and Leeds. Ranking patients in terms of illness is common practice in the USA. In fact UnitedHealth ranks/assesses patients for America’s insurance-led system.

Great Photos and report on Saturdays Day of Action! -ESON Newsletter 20/02/20

admin

20/02/2020

Last Saturday Ealing Save Our NHS (ESON) joined with campaigners around the country for a Day of Action to highlight the winter crisis, the worst ever for waiting times in A&E.

In January, London North West University Healthcare Trust which covers Ealing and Northwick Park A&Es, had 12,674, Type 1 (most urgent) attendances of which only 8,162 were seen and treated before the 4 hour target, the remaining 4,512 people waited 4 hours or more.

Unfortunately London North is not the worst! No wonder the Government wants to do away with the 4 hour target, so they can avoid scrutiny and hide their failure to fund the NHS properly.

The Day of Action:

In London, campaigners from Keep Our NHS Public group, NHS Staff Voices braved the wind and rain to hang the banner below on Westminster Bridge.

We had a great action in Ealing Broadway with lots of public support –

Please find below ESON’s press release and a few of the lovely photos from Saturdays event outside Perceval House and on the ‘March’.

PRESS RELEASE 15 Feb 2020

Campaigners highlight waiting times and targets being missed in underfunded NHS

Ealing Save Our NHS campaigners held a protest today to highlight the worst winter crisis recorded so far. They gathered on the steps of Perceval House, home of the Ealing Clinical Commissioning Group, which holds the purse strings for the NHS in Ealing.

Eve Turner, Secretary of Ealing Save Our NHS said: “Trolleys in corridors are now a regular feature in local hospitals – so much so that nurses and even doctors have had to be designated to staff corridors. The NHS is starting to crumble before our eyes – literally in the case of some maintenance issues, for example Hillingdon Hospital had to close children’s wards which became unsafe because there was no money for maintenance. The Trusts that run our hospitals have been starved of funding for years and now they are just not coping in some areas.”

She added “When more than a third of the most serious emergencies arriving at our A&Es couldn’t be dealt with in 4 hours, then we have a major crisis. But that’s exactly what happened last month in Ealing and Northwick Park Hospitals.”

To highlight the crisis, campaigners placed a full size skeleton in a wheelchair, being attended to far too late by an overworked doctor, while another ‘sick patient’ lay in a makeshift bed in a corridor.

The campaigners later marched to Ealing Broadway to distribute hundreds of leaflets to Saturday shoppers.

Campaigner Eric Leach said “We get fantastic support from the public. Despite the huge crisis, there is no management at Ealing Hospital, which is run remotely from Northwick Park. Vital services such as night time emergency surgery are facing the axe. It’s Horrifying and immoral.”

The protest was part of a national Day of Action, organised by Keep Our NHS Public.

PRESS RELEASES ENDS

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Great Photos and report on Saturdays Day of Action! -ESON Newsletter 20/02/20

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