“We think about 10 million people will need additional mental health support as a result of the pandemic” – Andy Bell, Deputy Chief Executive of the Centre for Mental Health speaking to the Health Service Journal.
The crisis in Mental Health treatment doesn’t get anything like the same coverage from the UK media as many other NHS services. In many ways, it has long been a Cinderella – more so with the years of government underfunding of public services. Queues for treatment have grown and huge numbers of people have been forced into private profit-making services – unaffordable to many of us.
It’s of course well known that those suffering most from discrimination and austerity also suffer the most from mental ill health. Rates are higher for women than men and higher inpoorer neighbourhoods. Cuts and bed closures are the last thing we need – but that’s just what’s happening in Ealing.
Ealing Save Our NHS has produced a document outlining its opposition to the proposedpermanent closure of Hope and Horizon Wards on the St Bernard’s Site next to EalingHospital. You can find the document here.
As the document explains: “This proposed cut would leave the whole Borough with NO acute adult mental health beds for anyone under 65 and leave many Ealing patients in a worse position than comparable Boroughs.”These plans would mean an overall reduction of 14 beds. Meanwhile no less than 61 beds elsewhere in North West London also face the axe.
We certainly hope that elected councillors and MPs in Ealing and surrounding areas will be opposing these closure plans as there is a huge and growing demand in Ealing for these beds.
NHS workers hoping for a well-deserved decent pay rise and that the Government would face up to the desperate situation in the NHS will have been disappointed by the Budget last week. Clearly the crisis in the NHS and the threat of industrial action meant the Chancellor was forced to announce a measly increase of 2% increase for the next two years – butwithout any funding for pay increases!
Whilst the figure of £3.3 billion looks good in the headlines, it is less than half the £7 billion that NHS leaders say is desperately needed for 2023 to fill the hole in the Budget. In other words, it is a CUT. Not only is it less money then needed, the Government expects the NHS to find even more so-called ‘efficiency savings’. And inevitably the squeeze on other public services, rises in energy prices and growing inflation will further impact on NHS budgets!
It now seems highly likely that the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) will go ahead with their first ever strike, while the nurses, ambulance workers and other workers in Unite, Unison, GMB and the Royal College of Midwives, who are currently balloting may well be fired up enough to join them!
WE TOTALLY SUPPORT THE NURSES AND OTHER NHS WORKERS IN THEIR FIGHT FOR DECENT PAY
For over a decade NHS workers have put up with real-term pay cuts, with some workers up to 29% worse off in real terms. It’s no wonder that many have chosen to walk away and those that remain are struggling to pay the bills and even feed themselves and their families. What a disgrace!
It has got so bad that Hospitals across the country have set up food banks for staff and have begun offering emergency loans to help staff who are under financial pressure, including at Ealing, Northwick Park and Central Middlesex Hospitals. Working agency shifts to meet the shortfall in NHS pay has become the norm, leading to even quicker burnout amongst staff who are already overworked.
This quote from Nurse activist Holly Turner really sums up why nurses are striking –
“What staff are witnessing first hand is a catastrophic breakdown of services that has left us with vacancies hitting 135,000and patients in danger. We desperately need to focus on retention of staff. Without addressing that, we have no chance of tackling the backlog of seven million patients”
No doubt when the strikes do take place there will be a backlash from the Government and their media friends, accusing the workers of threatening peoples lives etc. It is certainly not the workers’ fault that thousands of people are leaving or that the huge hole in NHS budgets means millions are sitting on waiting lists!
The RCN and other health unions have pledged to ensure that emergency care is not affected and will be exempting staff from strike action to ensure this.
ESON will be supporting our NHS workers at our next Stall in Ealing Broadway on Saturday 3rd December.
NO MORE ACUTE MENTAL HEALTH BEDS IN EALING!!
All of Ealing’s 31 inpatient beds for adults (under 65) which were ‘temporarily’ closed during the Covid pandemic are facing permanent closure by West London NHS Trust, which is responsible for mental health services in Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow. This would leave Ealing with ZERO acute beds for adults.
We know from campaigning with our Petition on the streets that local people are very much opposed to the loss of beds and want both child and adult acute beds re-opened.
Last year, according to our Freedom of information request, 352 seriously ill patients from Ealing (roughly 30 a month) were admitted to either Charing Cross (140) or Lakeside in Hounslow (212) cutting them off from their local community, friends , family and places of worship and causing hours of extra time in travelling and cost for their carers and family. Around 52% of the people affected, are also from the BAME community – so much for addressing inequalities!
The Trust is currently carrying out a ‘conversation’ or ‘engagement’, supposedly to seek the public’s view but it is skewered to support the case for permanently closing the beds by focusing on how bad the current building is for patients (which is true) while failing to make clear the loss of all adult acute beds in Ealing and the impact that would have on local people. They also talk of using the money saved in Ealing for better community services, but they are no substitute for a bed when you are seriously unwell – ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ comes to mind!
Although an extra 17 acute beds have been created at Lakeside in Hounslow using the money saved from closing the 31 beds in Ealing, that’s still a serious loss of 14 much-needed beds for the 3 Boroughs. According to the BMA and Royal College of Psychiatrists we need more acute beds not less!
The Trust needs to know there is widespread opposition to their plans, so to begin with we are participating in their ‘conversation’, even though its deeply flawed. We are urging people to fill in the survey and have your say.
We will be handing in our Petition against bed closures to the West London NHS Trust, Ealing Council and other NHS bodies, as well as lobbying our Councillors and local MPs to stand up for the people of Ealing as they did when Ealing Hospital was under threat.
PLEASE WRITE TO YOUR COUNCILLOR AND/OR MPasking them to oppose the bed cuts, especially if you or your family could be affected.
OUR PATIENT DATA IS UNDER THREAT AGAIN – Please write to your MP
The Observer newspaper recently reported that NHS England has instructed its digital wing, NHS Digital to use US spytech company Palantir’s operating platform, which is called ‘Foundry’, to collect patient data. This will include your NHS number, date of birth, postcode, admissions and inpatient activity. NHS England describe this as a “pilot”, supposedly to help bring down waiting lists.
We understand that Palantir are not fit in any way to have access to our data with their track record of working with US military operations, mass surveillance and predictive policing, not to mention Donald Trump.
AND most important we as patients haven’t been asked for our consent.
Campaigners against the sharing of our data with private companies are asking us to write to our MPs– it will only take a few minutes so please help.
END SOCIAL CARE DISGRACE PUBLIC MEETING
The End Social Care Disgrace Campaign, which is fighting for a National Care Support and Independent Living Service, is having an online Public Meeting on Monday 5th December from 6.00 -7.30pm.
There is no doubt that we need a really big national campaign to radically transform Social Care in to a free, publically provided service with decent pay, conditions and training that respects the role of care staff.
There is a great line up of speakers including MPs, service users, workers and carers.
We will be outside Marks & Spencers in Ealing Broadway from 11.30 -1.00pm on Saturday the 3rd. It’s our last push on our Mental Health beds Petition before we hand it in and we will certainly be highlighting why the public should be right behind Nurses and other NHS staff taking strike action too – Please come and join us.
If you would like to get more involved in our Campaign and come to our meetings, please drop us an email.
Here we go again! The latest prime minister has appointed yet another Health and Social Care Secretary, who yet again claims to be going to deal with the NHS crisis without putting in the vitally needed resources. We expect more empty announcements and sound bites like her A,B,C,D (ambulances, backlog care, doctors and dentists).
Clearly the situation in the NHS is pretty grim. In August around 28 000 people waited more than 12 hours on trolleys in emergency departments for a hospital bed. 6 .7 million people are now on waiting lists and NHS staff vacancies have increased to 132,000, with 40,000 experienced nurses leaving in a year – wiping out most new starters!
No wonder NHS unions are balloting members on industrial action, including for the first time ever the RCN (Royal College of Nursing) – they certainly have our support.
WILL THERESE COFFEY’S “PLAN FOR PATIENTS” STOP THE ROT – WE DON’T THINK SO
If you want to address the crisis in the NHS, a good place to start for a new Health Secretary would be to talk to GPs and the wider NHS, but NO – the “plan” was drawn up in a few days without any consultation. Sadly, this is nothing new for Government Ministers.
The ‘expectation’ that patients will get an appointment within two weeks with their GP and on the same day if its urgent, has had the most media coverage. Most patients (85% in July 2022) already get an appointment within two weeks of booking—almost half (44%) on the same day. Since you can’t compel GPs to cap waiting times at 2 weeks without renegotiating their contracts, Coffey is proposing that around 3 million patients should be offered appointments with physiotherapists, pharmacies and other health care professionals instead of doctors!
Once again we have the tired old nonsense of redirecting people away from A&E, which doesn’t work for seriously ill patients who need ambulances and hospital beds (we heard it often when they tried to close Ealing’s A&E). So we have more helplines, more ambulance call handlers, more monitoring of people at home, virtual beds and so on but no real extra staff or any more actual beds.
Without any extra money, soaring inflation and energy costs and a staffing crisis, it’s no surprise that they are looking to volunteers and retired clinicians to save the day!
John Lister from ‘the Lowdown’ has written an excellent analysis of the plan – very readable and not too long – a highly recommended read.
It was good to be back on the streets again last week talking to local people about what’s happening to our NHS. We were not surprised to hear stories of long waits for mental health support; long waits for surgery and long waits in A&E. When people eventually get some help they are happy with the care they get and sympathise with overworked staff doing their best.
Our latest leaflet spells out very clearly the extent of the NHS crisis and who is to blame – certainly not the staff, but all the Government underfunding and drive towards privatisation!
GOOD NEWS – EALING HOSPITAL GETS MORE FUNDING:
ESON is now having regular meetings with new London North West Trust Chief Executive, Pippa Nightingale, and Managing Director Mark Titcomb. It has certainly been a refreshing change to be able to hear about improvements made at Ealing Hospital and plans for even more new services, and to feel our voice and that of local people will be listened to.
A new Endoscopy Suite recently opened and there is much excitement about the major upgrade of the ‘Cath Lab’. The latter is not a Lab at all but a theatre run by specialists which carries out tests and heart procedures like stents and clearing arteries – a big plus for heart care and wellbeing for our local communities. Ward refurbishments are also underway, most recently ‘9 North’, and planned for the hard working Emergency Department. Paediatrics had an upgrade some months ago and there are now day beds staffed by a Consultant, though sadly still not a Paediatrics A&E, but you can still take your kids to Urgent Care.
Although not strictly a ‘local service’, plans for a NW London Community Diagnostic Hub based at Ealing Hospital are underway greatly expanding the range of diagnostic tests for our communities.
After years of neglect and losing services its great to be able to share some good news!
Last year a coalition including Keep Our NHS Public, Health Campaigns Together, NHS Workers Say No, We Own It, and several trade unions came together to campaign to end the crisis in the NHS.
The NHS is failing, not because of inherent flaws, but because the Government wants it to fail – to save money and bring in more private companies. We demand a health and care service fit for all.
SOS NHS demands are: –
Emergency funding to save a struggling NHS;
Guarantee free healthcare for future generations;
Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives
The SOS NHS Conference 2022 will be a vital opportunity to bring together all NHS supporters to create an actionable vision to save our NHS. We certainly need one as clearly the Government have no idea!
There is an excellent range of speakers and plenty of opportunity to ask questions and contribute.
The Conference will be a blended event so people can also join online as well as attend in person.
Our care system is failing many people who need care and support, putting them at risk, its also failing those who work in the care sector. Many people who need care can’t afford the charges to get the care they need and have to rely on family and friends to provide unpaid care – it’s a disgrace!
Keep Our NHS Public has launched a new Petition to raise awareness and demand that the Prime Minister ends the social care disgrace. Among their seven key demands is that Social Care should be provided free at the point of use and to ensure there is a properly trained workforce who get a living wage and decent working conditions.
The Data Protection and Digital Information currently going through Parliament is a major concern for health campaigners. If un-amended it would increase the extent to which citizens data can be shared with the State, law enforcement agencies and other bodies such as the commercial sector. Due to the appointment of Liz Truss the Bill has been delayed and may change, but its still worth reading this article on the KONP website.
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN MEETING WITH DR LOUISE IRVINE
We are delighted that Dr Louise Irvine, GP and campaigner is joining us at our next meeting on Tuesday 18th October. Louise will be talking about the latest so- called ‘plan for patients’ and why many GPs are opposed to it. The meeting is online at 7.30pm. Please contact us for the link.
Thanks to everyone who helped out and came to see us on our Stall at Hanwell Carnival. It was great to talk to so many local people about the NHS crisis and to promote our campaigns. This year as always there was huge public support for our NHS combined with lots of stories of the difficulties in accessing services and big waits for vital treatment.
Hundreds of people took our leaflets and agreed to send a message to the new North West London Integrated Care System Chair opposing private companies sitting on the Integrated Care Board, and around 200 people signed our ‘Re-open Mental Health Beds’ Petitions.
And the kids loved the ‘skeleton’ photo opportunity!
According to the CQC, in their recent Inspection Report, Ealing Hospital staff ‘treat patients with compassion and kindness and respect their privacy and dignity’ – certainly good to hear but not surprising to us.
As we move closer to the break up of our NHS into 42 new ‘Integrated Care Systems’ (ICS) there are grave concerns about unreasonable targets, placing even greater pressures on staff to be ‘more productive’, and big financial squeezes. It seems that the North West London ICS, which includes Ealing, is starting its life with a £93 million deficit – and it’s a similar story around the country.
IT’S CARNIVAL TIME IN HANWELL – JOIN US THIS SATURDAY 18TH JUNE
Once again Ealing Save Our NHS is joining in the festivities with our colourful Stall and some fun for the kids. We have a great new leaflet calling on the new NWL ICS not to allow private companies to sit on their Boards, and balloons and stickers too. It has become a tradition to have a photo opportunity and this year ‘Skeletons’ are the theme again, with our ‘face in the hole’ as you can see from the photo above.
If you are visiting Hanwell Carnival please come and say a hello, take a photo and a leaflet or have a look at our new leaflet here.
CATCH UP ON OUR EXCELLENT SPEAKER – PAUL DAY – ON ‘YOUTUBE’
We were delighted in May to have Paul Day from the Pharmacists Defence Association & Union as our Guest Speaker and he was really fascinating. We certainly realised we didn’t know very much about Pharmacists at all!
There are 58,000 Pharmacists in the UK, 66% are female and 45% BAME but seniors are usually men.
Mostly pharmacists are employees not owners. The PDA has 34,000 members and is the only independent union for pharmacists. Half the sector is in the hands of 10 companies- Boots and Lloyds are the best known in London.
To qualify as a pharmacist takes a minimum of five years and although they have considerable medical training, the emphasis is on supplying medicines to meet individual needs. Perhaps it’s not a surprise that they often pick up on GPs mistakes and can help with more minor conditions.
Pharmacists as we know are the most accessible part of NHS where anyone can speak to a health professional and sometimes that’s what many of us do as when we can’t see out GPs.
Current issues for the union include; pay and workplace pressure; violence & abuse; safer pharmacies; unnecessary closures; remote supervision and prescription charges.
Interesting to note on unnecessary closure, that despite Boots sent £4 billion to their parent company despite closing pharmacies at times due to staff shortages – profits first!
BBC EXPOSE – OPEROSE RUN SURGERIES PUT PROFITS BEFORE PATIENTS:
An investigation by BBC’s Panorama (shown on Monday 13th June) has found that Operose, the UK’s biggest chain of GP surgeries, has let less-qualified Patient Associates (PA) see patients without adequate supervision leading to claims that the company is putting profits before care quality. A PA can see patients and support GPs in diagnosis and patient management, but is supposed to have supervision from a GP.
The BBC sent in undercover reporter Jackie Wakefield to work as a receptionist in one of the 51 GP surgeries owned by Operose Health, a subsidiary of US private insurer, Centene. It was at this surgery that a GP said they were short of eight doctors and the practice manager said they hired the less qualified Patient Associates because they were “cheaper” than GPs – Operose employs six times as many physician associates as the NHS average, according to NHS data.
For every 2,000 registered patients, there are on average the equivalent of 1.2 full-time GPs. But at Operose practices the average is half that,at a little over 0.6 full time equivalent GPs
While undercover, Panorama was also told about a backlog of important patient referral documents, often unread by doctors or pharmacists for many months.
NHS campaigners who opposed the takeover of AT Medics GP Surgeries in 2021 by Operose/Centene have certainly been vindicated.
And if you can access BBC I Player you can still watch the excellent Panorama expose which was shown on Monday 13th June at 8.00pm on BBC 1.
CQC INSPECTION OF EALING HOSPITAL:
The CQC did an unannounced inspection of Ealing and Northwick Park Medical Care and Core Surgery and a separate inspection of how ‘well led’ the London North West Trust is. Overall the Trust is still rated as ‘requiries improvement’and the Trust itself agrees that is a fair rating at this time.
Whilst Ealing Hospital medical care staff were deemed to ‘treat patients with compassion and kindness and respect their privacy and dignity’, overall the service was rated as ‘requires improvement’. Reasons for this rating included – high vacancies among nursing staff, uncertainty about responsibilies in some areas and senior executive teams and some ward leaders not being visible, as based at Northwick Park. ESON is not surprised by some of the problems as we have maintained that Ealing has been neglected by the Trust until fairly recently.
Surgery however, was rated as ‘good overall’ with similar comments about the treatment of patients and good leadership within the surgical teams. There was also one area in medical care and two in surgery that were rated as ‘outstanding’. One of these was upskilling surgical staff to enable outpatient and inpatient teams to work together more responsively to improve patient outcomes – good news for us!
Northwick Park received the same ratings as Ealing for both medical care and surgery.
We look forward to hearing how the Trust plans to address the inspectors concerns and achieve a ‘good overall’ rating, which it has committed to do.
GP EXTENDED HOURS MAY NOT BE SUCH GOOD NEWS:
In October this year the Government has said that Primary Care Networks (groups of GP surgeries) must provide extended hours from 6.30 – 8.00pm Monday Friday and 9.00 – 5.00pm on Saturday in the area covered. For many patients who work full time this must sound like a really positive move.
Primary Care Networks range from 5-10 practices so the chance of seeing your own GP during the extended hours is small. It is hard enough not being able to see your own GP but this would make continuity of care even less likely.
Latest figures of GP numbers show that there is just over 1 GP for every 2200 patients. There are 1343 fewer doctors then in 2017 but 3.1 million more patients – it’s no wonder that GPs are leaving.
The British Medical Association, who represent doctors, are not in favour of this extension of hours and apparently they haven’t been consulted despite their best efforts. They think it will only add to the number of GPs leaving the service.
It is an example of yet another sticky plaster fix from this Government. Instead of properly funding and training more GPs – lets just try and squeeze more out of them!
JAVID CALLS NHS ‘A DEFUNCT BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO STORE IN AGE OF NETFLIX’ !
The NHS is a “Blockbuster healthcare system in the age of Netflix,” according to Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, who presumably thinks that – like Netflix – the NHS needs to be saddled with unsustainable debt, much more expensive than its rivals, and falling behind on quality and options.
“He said large-scale changes were needed in areas such as the use of technology and data to help frontline workers deliver the high-quality service the public expects.
And this includes a big push on productivity to save £4.6 Billion a year and definitely no new money.
It is expected that the managers will once again be under the hammer even though it is generally held that the NHS has far too few managers. They are only 2% of the workforce and as a result doctors and nurses are being forced to spend hours doing managerial and admin work, time that could be better spent doing actual doctoring and nursing.
‘THIS IS GOING TO HURT’- AUTHOR ADAM KAY TO SPEAK AT ESON JULY MEETING!!
The well-known author and former doctor Adam Kay has agreed to speak and answer questions at our online July Meeting. He is best known for his book, This is Going to Hurt’, which was recently a television series. The book and series focus on his experiences as a obstetrics and gynaecology junior doctor from 2004-10.
The series was ironically partly filmed in Ealing Hospital’s empty Maternity Unit, which was an added incentive for him to speak to us.
You can hear Adam Kay on Tuesday 26th July – more details nearer the time.
Yet none of this causes ‘our’ Government to change course. Instead they have pressed ahead with the Health & Care Act, which will only make matters worse, and have set impossible financial targets for NHS Trusts and the newly created ‘Integrated Care Boards’. If they comply with these targets it will mean a much worse service for all patients.
All the more reasons for us to keep up our campaigning!!
**ESON CAMPAIGN MEETING: TUESDAY 17th MAY**
We hope you can join us at our online Campaign Meeting next Tuesday at 7.30pm
From 7.30 – 8.15pm we will hear from our Guest Speaker, Paul Day, Director of the ‘Pharmacist Defence Association and Union’ (PDA). The PDA represents and supports individual pharmacists (and pharmacy students). Pharmacists played a fantastic role in supporting the roll out of the Covid vaccine and are under increasing pressure from the Government to play an even greater role in patient care without extra resources. Paul will be happy to answer questions, including concerns about drug supplies.
From around 8.15pm we have the business part of our meeting where we will be discussing our Stall at Hanwell Carnival on 18th June, campaigning in ‘NWL’, ideas for leaflets and a report back on our meeting with local NHS officials on mental health and future NHS organisation in the Borough.
You are very welcome to join our meeting at 7.30pm on the Zoom link here –
EALING BROADWAY STREET STALL – SATURDAY 21ST MAY:
Our next Stall will be from 11.30 – 1.00 pm outside Marks & Spencers in Ealing Broadway. As usual we will have plenty of leaflets to give out and our Petition to reinstate acute mental health beds in the Borough.
If you can help for a while we will be very pleased to see you.
A ROUND UP OF WHATS HAPPENING IN NORTH WEST LONDON NHS:
Ealing Hospital: A review of services is to take place at long last! We are pleased to report that the new Chief Executive of London North West NHS Trust, Pippa Nightingale, has agreed to meet us to discuss this and other concerns.
North West London:
Along with other campaigners in North West London we attend the ‘in-public’ meetings of the North West London CCG, which covers eight Boroughs and is soon to be replaced by the North West London Integrated Care System (ICS). It is an opportunity for campaigners to gather information and ask questions about what’s happening to our NHS services.
Some of the highlights from the recent NWL CCG meeting are –
Unacceptable levels of bullying and harassment in NWL NHS: This was revealed in the National NHS Staff Survey along with general dissatisfaction among staff across the Board. The new NWL CEO Rob Hurd is making it his top priority to address it.
Finances under the Cosh: Plans to reduce their ‘projected’ £92.9million deficit – and the Government’s unreasonable targets of pre-Covid levels + 4% for elective care activity will only lead to more cuts.
Apparently NWL ICS is the lead for the London Ambulance Service and its £69 Million deficit, so more cuts for this struggling service no doubt.
Private Contracts: There are literally hundreds of contracts but we only get to hear about the eight over £5million. BMI/Circle are doing very well with a £6 million contract for ‘increasing elective care capacity’. Apparently the NHS can’t meet the Government’s 104% target without them.
Performance: Pretty much a tale of long A&E waits, emergency calls not being answered in 30 seconds as required and in some cases being ABANDONED. Shockingly people needing a Mental Health assessment routinely wait 12 hour in A&E and this was normal even before Covid!
‘HEALTH & CARE ACT – AN ATTACK ON THE NHS’ :
The Health & Care Act, which has just been passed by Parliament, is an attack on the NHS, breaking it up into 42 regional and separate units, called Integrated Care Systems (ICS),
These Integrated Care Systems cover huge areas. The North West London ICS, which includes Ealing, covers eight boroughs with a population of over 2.2 million.
It will have a massive budget (tightly controlled by Central Government) and total control over who delivers services and indeed what services are provided across the whole of North West London.
It will also open the doors to even greater privatisation and doing absolutely nothing to address the massive shortages of staff and chronic underfunding.- in fact there is even a threat to national pay and conditions for NHS staff.
We have a short article on our website that explains the new NHS structures and the threat of the Health & Care Act to the NHS.
It’s an easy read and it would be great if you could circulate it to friends and family.
FRIMLEY TRUST LOSES £9M FOR NOT MEETING GOVERNMENT TARGETS
Not far away from us in Surrey, is Frimley Health Foundation Trust who cover Wexham Park Hospital in Slough among others. The Trust is set to lose £9m for not meeting the Governments elective targets in 2022-23, £2m of which is because it needs to close theatres to fix a dangerous roof – you couldn’t even make this up!
The story in the ‘Health Service Journal’ goes on to say that, despite the theatre closures, the Trust still expects to carry out 99% of the amount of elective work it did in 2019-20. But this isn’t good for the Government, who have set every Trust a target of carrying out 104% of elective work they did pre covid.
An overall £35.2m deficit is predicted for Frimley for 2022-23 – bad news for their patients..
John Lister and the team at ‘the Lowdown’ have been very busy doing some in-depth research on the 42 new Integrated Care Systems due to come in to being on 1st July which will control health care across England, including in North West London.
Almost all of them are projecting big deficits in their first year which will bring them in to conflict with the Government who has made it very clear they must break even in 2022/23.
So all the fine words we have been hearing about the ‘benefits of integrated care systems’ are no more than a cover for a system of control to keep costs down regardless of patients needs or demographics.
North West London is not covered in the Lowdown article, but will be the subject of the next in-depth article – however it is still very interesting reading. Read it here.
HIGH COURT RULING AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT
The government’s policy towards care homes in England at the start of the Covid pandemic has been ruled illegal, in a significant blow to ministers’ claim to have thrown a “protective ring” around the vulnerable residents.
Dr Cathy Gardner, one of two grieving daughters who brought the case after their fathers died from Covid in care homes in April and May 2020, called on Boris Johnson to resign after the landmark ruling, saying the illegal care homes policy was just one of several failures in the management of the pandemic.
More than a quarter of all deaths among care home residents in March and April 2020 involved Covid-19 – more than 12,500 people.
Michael Mansfield QC, who chaired the People’s Covid Inquiry, urged the public to hold the Government to account: “If you can show in an individual case that a relative or loved one died as a result of exposure to someone who transmitting or carrying Covid, which is what must have happened in those early days, then obviously the first port of call is going to ministry and saying you want compensation”
Well done to Dr Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris for shining the spotlight on this disgraceful treatment of vulnerable people, it shows that victories can be won against the Government.
‘THIS IS GOING TO HURT’- AUTHOR ADAM KAY TO SPEAK AT ESON JULY MEETING!!
The well-known author and former doctor Adam Kay has agreed to speak and answer questions at our online July Meeting. He is best known for his book, This is going to Hurt’, which was recently a television series. The book and series focus on his experiences as a obstetrics and gynecologic junior doctor from 2004-10.
The series was ironically partly filmed in Ealing Hospital’s empty Maternity Unit, which was an added incentive for him to speak to us.
You can hear Adam Kay on Tuesday 26th July – more details nearer the time.
The Health & Care Bill, which has just been passed by Parliament, is an attack on the NHS, breaking it up into 42 regional and separate units, called Integrated Care Systems (ICS),
These Integrated Care Systems cover huge areas. The North West London ICS, which includes Ealing, covers eight boroughs with a population of over 2.2 million. It will have a massive budget ( tightly controlled by Central Government) and total control over who delivers services and indeed what services are provided across the whole of North West London.
As each ICS is effectively autonomous they can choose which services to prioritise and which not to prioritise thus creating a postcode lottery. There is even a threat to national pay and conditions for NHS staff.
THE THREAT OF EVEN GREATER PRIVATISATION
One of the most publicised threats to the NHS has been that the Bill will open the doors to even greater privatisation. Decisions on awarding contracts will be taken by new Boards of ‘Directors’ called Integrated Care Boards (ICB)
Lots of campaigning was done to stop private companies sitting on these Boards but was unsuccessful. Instead the Chair of the ICB has the power to decide whether an appointment to the Board “could reasonably be regarded as undermining the independence of the health service”, which doesn’t actually preclude private companies from sitting on Boards or other committees and therefore able to influence decisions on what care is provided, by whom and for whom.
The one thing private companies won’t have to do anymore is compete with each other or the NHS to provide services, as the Health & Care Bill abolished the requirement to put contracts for NHS services through a competitive tendering process. However as the British Medical Association (BMA) has argued, without making the NHS the default provider, scrapping competitive tendering only opens the door to contracts being handed out to private companies without transparency. In other words – more cronyism!
A SNAPSHOT OF OTHER ASPECTS OF THE BILL
Undermining terms & conditions of NHS Staff – to meet Government financial targets ICSs will be under pressure to reduce costs by using fewer staff or less qualified staff or even introducing local pay.
Deregulation of NHS professions – downgrading nurses and doctors could now be on the cards
Discharge from hospital without assessment – no check to see if patients or carers can cope!
Powers for Secretary of State to intervene in reconfigurations – so they can push through closures of hospitals or A&Es like Ealing
“Digital first” approach to NHS – making online GP and hospital appointments the norm
Sharing of Patient Data – more profits for private companies, who can target patients for private treatment
Social Care Cap of £86,000 – good news for well-off people!
Emergency Care no longer specified as available to all those present in the area – so people not registered with a GP may be turned away – an undermining of a basic principle of the NHS.
KEEP OUR NHS PUBLIC ON PASSING OF THE BILL STATEMENT
Keep Our NHS Public nationally and groups like Ealing Save Our NHS have been campaigning vigorously against the Bill.
You can read their response to the passing of the Bill here
YOU CAN DO SOMETHING TO STOP THE PRIVATEERS
The national anti-privatisation campaign – ‘We Own It’ has launched their ‘Rebuild our NHS: Get Private Profits Out’ campaign to build pressurise on ‘local NHS leaders’ across England.
The campaign’s demands are simple:
Ban private companies from being on our local NHS decision making boards & committees
Ban private companies from deciding who provides NHS services
End outsourcing and privatisation of NHS services
‘We Own It’ want help to get 3,000 emails sent to each Chair of the new 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS).
They have made it very easy for you to send these emails.
All you have to do is click on this link and write in your postcode and in two minutes an email is on its way to Penny Dash, Chair of our ‘local’ North West London ICS.
Thanks to everyone who signed the ‘SOS NHS’ Petition calling for an urgent £20 billion for the NHS. A very respectable 177,000 signatures was handed in to Downing Street the day before the Spring Budget.
Well, unsurprisingly Chancellor Rishi Sunak did not deliver the funding we wanted but the fight
needs to carry on as chronic underfunding and understaffing exacerbated by the Covid Pandemic are putting NHS staff and services under intolerable strain.
Billions of pounds of NHS money have been given to private companies ill-equipped to deliver a decent service – whilst the NHS is starved of the funding and even more cuts are ordered to “make it more efficient”! It really is time to get the privateers out of the NHS. So please support the campaign to ‘Rebuild Our NHS and Get Private Profits Out’.
PLEASE SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN
REBUILD OUR NHS: GET PRIVATE PROFITS OUT!
The private sector is making huge profits out of the NHS and this Government seems committed to give them even more of our money whilst starving the NHS of much needed funds.
The national anti-privatisation campaign – ‘We Own It‘ has launched their ‘Rebuild our NHS: Get Private Profits Out’ campaign to lobby local NHS leaders across England and have asked ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ groups like Ealing Save Our NHS to help.
The campaign’s demands are simple:
Ban private companies from being on our local NHS decision making boards & committees
Ban private companies deciding who provides NHS services
End outsourcing and privatisation of NHS services
The We Own Itcampaign aims to build unprecedented pressure on ‘local NHS leaders’. They want to get 3,000 emails sent to each Chair of the new 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS). These Integrated Care System bodies will control NHS budgets from 1st July 2022 and plan ,decide and commission NHS services.
We Own It have made it very easy for us to send these emails.
All you have to do is click the link below and in two minutes an email is on its way to Penny Dash, Chair of our local North West London ICS.
‘KEEP FREE COVID TESTS’ – PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION
Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr John Puntis has set up this Petition which now has over 500,000 signatures. Although launched the day before free Covid tests ended, it is still worth signing and circulating. The end of free lateral flow and PCR tests, reflects a dangerous mindset that the Covid pandemic can be simply wished away by those hoping to persuade us that a return to ‘normal’ is imminent.
TIME TO STOP THE PING PONG AT EALING HOSPITAL:
Since 2017 when the disastrous plans (‘Shaping a Healthy Future’) to close our A&E and beds were finally consigned to the dustbin, we have been campaigning for a proper plan for Ealing Hospital.
Despite some much welcome investment in Ealing recently, the flow of services has mostly been one way – out of Ealing Hospital into Northwick Park Hospital. The situation was worsened by Covid when lots of services were closed and re-located, including 24 hour Emergency General Surgery and Trauma & Orthopaedics and were very slow to return. Emergency General Surgery re-opened only as a daytime service, while ambulances with suspected trauma patients continued to be diverted away from Ealing to Northwick Park.
Finally, as a result of campaigning by ourselves, MPs and especially the determination of the staff at Ealing Hospital, 24 hour Emergency General Surgery restarted in December 2021. Then on Monday 28th March the ambulance divert was finally lifted, so trauma patients will once again be treated at Ealing Hospital (hurrah!)
At a recent meeting of the Council’s Health & Wellbeing Board we heard that a Review is to finally take place of the ‘Ealing site’, which is welcome – better late than never. However in the meantime, more services are STILL being ‘centralised’ at Northwick Park Hospital.
Breast & Urology:
A major investment is to take place of Breast Care and Urology, but it comes as no surprise that the beneficiary is once again Northwick Park which, the Trust pretends, is patients’ favoured geographical location! (So apparently, this doesn’t depend on where people actually live.)
We have tried to impress on the London North West Healthcare Trust our concerns about the accessibility of Northwick Park and how such moves will worsen health inequalities, but so far they are not listening.
Ealing Hospital, we are told will retain the ‘current Breast Service’ (which is only 2 of the 4 pre-pandemic clinics) and treatments such as radiology and there will probably still be some Urology clinics at Ealing but not anything else. As for Central Middlesex Hospital, it seems its ‘so-called’ limited Breast & Urology services are to completely cease!
We hope to meet with the new London North West Trust Chief Executive, Pippa Nightingale, to raise our concerns and discuss the future for Ealing Hospital.
Public Satisfaction with the NHS at its lowest since 1997
A recent British Social Attitudes survey shows that public satisfaction with the NHS has fallen to just 36%, the lowest since 1997. Dissatisfaction with GPs has fallen quite dramatically with only 38% of patients satisfied with the service compared to 68% satisfaction in 2020.
For the first time people were asked what they thought the most important priorities should be for the NHS. Top of the list was making it easier to get a GP appointment, followed by improving waiting times for planned operations and increasing the number of staff in the NHS. This is not surprising, given the difficulties in getting GP appointments and when about four in ten people are either on the 6.1 million waiting list for treatment or have a family member who is on it.
Public support for the principles of the NHS remains strong with a big majority supporting the NHS being free when you need it and available to everyone and a significant majority supporting the NHS being primarily funded through taxation.
We would recommend reading GP Dr Nick Mann’s response to the public satisfaction survey on the Keep Our NHS Public website here
Mental Health Services near to collapse
According to a shocking new report by mental health charity stem4, publicised in The Guardian, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are in a state of near-collapse across much of the UK.
The report draws on a survey this Spring of 1001 GPs, and finds 95% of respondents believe CAMHS services are either in crisis or very inadequate, revealing a deterioration over the past six years.
Almost two thirds of GPs fear their young patients may come to harm through lack of access to treatment, with half reporting that 60% of their referrals are rejected, because young people’s symptoms of anxiety, depression or self-harm are not seen as “severe enough”. Almost one in five (18%) say a patient has attempted to or taken their own life due to lack of access to treatment over the past 12 months.
Cleaners and Porters at Croydon Hospital win a big pay rise
A strike at Croydon Hospital has been called off after GMB members won a ‘massive’ 24 per cent pay rise. Cleaners and porters at the South London hospital were due to walk out on Monday in a dispute over wages and sick pay. But now their employer, outsourcing giant G4S, has offered the workers an immediate 24 per cent pay rise with backpay and an occupational sick pay scheme. It’s great to see low paid workers who worked throughout the Covid pandemic winning some justice!
Kendal & South Lakes campaigners stop move to new hospital 45 miles away!
The story – a downgraded local hospital, a tick-box ‘public consultation’ and a local Healthwatch giving an veneer of fake accountability – that sounds a lot like our experience of fighting to save Ealing Hospital!
Local people in Kendal and South Lakes were supposedly being consulted on options for a bid to the New Hospitals Programme – except of course it was rigged for the favoured option, which was to close their nearest major hospital, the Lancashire Royal Infirmary and replace it and the Royal Preston with a new hospital 45 miles away near Preston.
A very vigorous campaign by Kendal & South Lakes Keep Our NHS Public has led to the removal of the option to build a new hospital near Preston. They now intend to fight on to get much needed funds for their local hospital, Westmoreland General which has been facing closure for some years. Yay! Well done to them!
“Are we going to fight for the NHS – YES WE ARE!!”
This was the was the resounding call at todays uplifting protest.
Over 70 people turned out for today’s SOS NHS Day of Action to show their support for our NHS and its workers. Lots of people driving by in cars, vans and buses who constantly beeped and took our leaflets.
Around the country there were over 80 similar events calling for emergency NHS funding now; pay justice for health & care workers and a publicly owned and run NHS.
A big thanks to all our speakers who did us proud expressing both passion and anger and urging us on to fight on to defend and save our NHS. And of course we had plenty of chants in between.
There was a really great turnout from all our lovely campaigners and supporters as usual. We were also joined by Dr Sonia Adesera from Keep Our NHS Public, Virendra Sharma MP and Dr Onkar Sahota, Ealing Reclaim Social Care Action Group, Southall Community Alliance, Seniors Action Group Ealing, Ealing Housing Co-op, Green Party, Indian Workers Association and Stand Up to Racism.
Thanks to all those who came and to Ealing Trades Union Council for all their help and support.
We certainly did show that we are here to fight for our NHS and support NHS workers all the way!
NHS workers are under the worst pressure ever, with beds at full capacity, huge waiting lists, staff shortages, and an insulting 3% pay offer for workers facing 7.1% inflation (and rising) has added to the demoralisation.
However, despite all the pressure and lack of resources NHS workers are still doing a fantastic job caring for us on the Covid wards and stepping up to help ensure that the booster vaccines get out to as many people as possible.
But coupled with the sheer exhaustion of 2 years of caring for Covid patients, it is no surprise that over 27,000 NHS staff left the service just in the last 3 months of 2021.
Hard as it will be, we need to make the Government urgently fund the NHS and that is why ‘Keep Our NHS Public’ and ‘Health Campaigns Together’ have launched a new campaign called ‘SOS NHS’.
If you want to get more involved in campaigning to save our NHS please support the new campaign and come to our AGM on Tuesday 18th January.
Wednesday 19th January SOS NHS RALLY – EMERGENCY FUNDING NOW !
SOS NHS is a new coalition of campaign groups and trade unions which are demanding emergency funding for the NHS to support services and staff and not the private sector.
This is the hardest winter ever in health and social care for a generation and that’s why SOS NHS believes we must act now to save staff morale, avoid a mental health crisis among health and care staff and safeguard services for patients and service users.
It’s three demands are –
Approve emergency funding of £20 billion to save lives this winter
Invest in a fully publicly owned NHS & guarantee free healthcare for future generations
Pay staff properly: without fair pay, staffing shortages will cost lives
Please join the Online Rally 7.00pm, Wednesday 19th January
Speakers from Keep Our NHS Public, Health Campaigns Together, People’s Assembly Against Austerity, Unite the Union, GMB, We Own It, NHS Support Federation, NHS Workers Say No, NHS Staff Voices, Doctors in Unite, Doctors for the NHS, personalities, politicians and more.
There will also be a SOS NHS National Day of Action on Saturday 26th Februarywhich aims to have local actions across the country. ESON will be supporting the SOS NHS campaign and discussing ideas for a local action at our AGM next week.
Please put the date in your diaries and watch out for our update.
ESON AGM & Meeting – Tuesday 18th January:
It’s AGM time, so we will be looking back over the last year and reviewing what we have done and discussing our campaigning priorities for 2022. It’s a good opportunity to find out more about what we have been doing and help us plan our campaigning for the next few months. You will be very welcome.
Our AGM kicks off with Lewis Baker, new Campaigns Officer with ‘Keep Our NHS Public (KONP), who will be talking to us about his work which includes liaising with local groups like us, and updating us on KONP’s national campaigning.
We will also be electing our Officers & Committee. If you are interested in getting involved please get in touch for more information – very happy to chat.
Join the meeting on Tuesday 18th January, 7.30pm here –
The Agenda will follow on Monday, so if you would like to attend, please email us.
Health & Care Bill
The Health & Care Bill which is now being debated in the House of Lords is a major threat to the NHS as a comprehensive, publically funded and publically provided service.
Some of the threats include:
Breaking up the NHS into 42 new Integrated Care Systems with huge budgets and the power to decide which services to provide – so a postcode lottery;
No requirement to provide an emergency services for everyone present in an area i.e. those not on a GP list.
Private sector companies allowed to sit on Integrated Care Boards and Committees and make decisions on how public money is spent – more profits for them!
Removing any requirement to assess patients care needs before they are discharged from hospital.
Loss of public accountability with no requirement for meetings of Integrated Care Boards to be held in public, publish papers or allow public questions in public.
Gives power to NHS Digital to share patient data with third parties including the private sector.
Giving the Secretary of State greater powers to intervene locally.
Although Health campaigners want to see the Bill thrown out we’re also hoping to persuade members of the Lords to amend some of the worst aspects as mentioned above.
Peoples Covid Inquiry writes to Met Police concerning ‘criminal matters’
In December the Peoples Covid Inquiry which was chaired by Michael Mansfield QC published its findings on the handling of the Covid Pandemic and concluded the Government was guilty of misconduct in office.
Keep Our NHS Public who conceived and organised the Inquiry have, following legal advice, written to Cressida Dick, Metropolitan Police Commissioner setting out the case that the Government has committed two criminal offences namely corporate manslaughter (excessive Covid deaths) and misconduct in public office.
BREAKING NEWS – Government PPE ‘VIP’ lane for political friends declared ‘unlawful’
Congratulations to the Good Law Project and EveryDoctor who successfully challenged the Governments secretive fast-track VIP lane for PPE contracts, worth billions of pounds, to those with political (i.e. Tory) connections. On Wednesday 12th January the High Court ruled this had been unlawful. The Court found in favour of the claimants and said:
“The Claimants have established that operation of the High Priority Lane was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment… the illegality is marked by this judgment.” (§512)
The Judge agreed the VIP lane conferred preferential treatment on bids: it sped up the process, which meant offers were considered sooner in a process where timing was critical, and VIPs’ hands were held through the process. Some justice at last!!
Three days after the World Health Organisation placed Omicron on its Covid “variants of concern” list, news slipped out that the UK government was planning to sell off the publicly funded Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) in Oxford. While other countries have been scrambling to build vaccine capacity, Britain has chosen this precise moment to sell, to the highest bidder, what was to be its first strategic vaccine development and manufacturing centre.
According to the Government source, who leaked it to the Financial Times, since the private sector has stepped up so marvellously during the pandemic, producing huge quantities of vaccines there was simply no need for the Government to take part in making them itself!!
VMIC, when finished in 2023, is expected to be able to produce 70 million doses in six months. But rapid production is only one of the reasons to fund and build VMIC. The others include providing critical support to vaccine manufacturers at various stages in the process, from development through to taking a new vaccine into public use.
Oxfordshire Keep Our NHS Public has been working together with We Own Itto oppose this scandalous sell off – Please Sign the Petition
You can read more on this story from the excellent John Lister in ‘The Lowdown’
John Lister writing in the Lowdown reveals that Chancellor Rishi Sunak has shifted policy from giving the NHS “what it needs” to fight Covid to reportedly warning Health Secretary Sajid Javid that additional spending on will have to be paid for, either by cutting spending elsewhere or by raising taxes. Definitely worth reading.
