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The South East Coast Strategic Health Authority was formed on 1 July 2006.
Where possible reports will continue to be shown under:
Kent and Medway Strategic Health Authority
Surrey and Sussex Strategic Health Authority
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Tribal in new NHS contract Tribal group has been selected as the
preferred bidder to provide 190,000
diagnostic
procedures annually for the next five years. Tribal's Cirencester-based
Mercury Health division, which already provides similar services in the
South East, will carry out the procedures
across the South East.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Western
Daily Press 29 July 2006
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NHS plc: a dire diagnosis. Private Eye says: "No sooner had a
cross-party committee of MPs heavily criticised the government's use of
independent sector
treatment centres (ISTCs) than the Department of Health defiantly
announced that these private sector companies would be given £lbn worth of
contracts to run a series of "diagnostic centres". The identities of the lucky
firms show how commercial the business of healthcare has become. The
London and east England contract
goes to Amicus InHealth… owned by a consortium of South African private health
outfit Netcare, which botched a contract to provide cataract operations in
Oxfordshire; Apax, a private equity group set up by New Labour favourite
Sir Ronald Cohen; and Inhealth, a company chaired by serial private health
director Tim Chessells and owned by a mysterious Luxembourg fund called
Pegasus. Doubtless this bunch has nothing but the nation's health in mind as
it makes crucial diagnoses and won't be unduly inclined to push people to
independent treatment centres of the sort run by, er, Netcare. Meanwhile in
the South West the record of the (management)
consultants at Atos Origin in providing the over-priced and unpopular
choose-and-book system for hospital referrals was no bar to their success. Nor
in the South East were there too many concerns
about the conflicts of interest presented by handing the diagnosis deal to the
country's biggest private hospital operator, the taxdodging BUPA.
West Midlands patients will be able to
benefit from the services of Mercury Healthcare, the company that has already
been paid millions for work it hasn't done and whose "group strategy director"
is one Mark Smith, the former chief executive of
Portsmouth Hospitals NHS trust who resigned after the trust received zero
stars. From there he became head of health at PFI firm Amey working closely
with Ken Anderson... who now just happens to be doling out the diagnostic
centre contracts as "commercial director" of the NHS. Appropriately enough in
the North East the diagnostics contract has
gone to Alliance Medical, the company owned by yet another private equity
group, Bridgepoint - former employer of Geordie New Labour man and ex-Health
Secretary Alan Milburn. The company's previous forays into the health service
include a £95m contract to run MRI scans which were so poor they had to be
checked by the NHS anyway, leading the British Medical Association to describe
the firm's performance as "a complete disaster". So depending on where you
live, your next illness could well be diagnosed by an incompetent or a
profiteer - or more likely a combination of the two."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Private Eye 16 August 2006
- Private
ambulances. Staff at the South East Coast
Ambulance Service NHS Trust (SECAM) have revealed that they are having to pick
up patients who private
company GSL have been paid and contracted to carry, as part of the
developing market for public-private partnerships in ambulance services. GSL
won the contract for the profitable non-emergency patients in Surrey while
emergency work remained with the NHS. GSL's bid was only marginally cheaper
than that from the NHS. Insiders suggest that when GSL won the contract, it
underestimated the level of care and demand for non-emergency inter-hospital
transfers, which do require qualified ambulance technicians and paramedics to
be on hand with a fully-equipped ambulance. As a result some patients have
been left waiting for up to nine hours, and hospital staff have been deciding
that patients are more ill than was first thought, to secure an emergency
ambulance. Now SECAM has said it is unwilling to compensate for problems with
the private provider.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Private Eye 16 August 2006
- NHS criticised over naming and shaming of endangered health trusts.
The government was criticised today for drawing up a hit list of 77 NHS trusts
at risk of closure, cuts in services and significant debt. The list, released
today by the Department of Health (DoH), also highlights which trusts are
likely to come under the most media scrutiny - prompting accusations from
doctors' leaders and opposition MPs that NHS reform is being driven by
political priorities rather than clinical need. The so-called "heat maps"
assessed whether individual NHS trusts would face national, regional or local
media attention and when this coverage was most likely to occur. It also
identified where NHS closures or cuts could affect Labour MPs. The list was
released by the DoH following a request by the Conservative party under the
Freedom of Information Act. Under the plans to reform the NHS, more patients
would be treated in the community rather than at their local hospital, and
specialist services would be taken away from local hospitals to create
regional centres of excellence. The impact was expected to be greatest on
acute and community hospitals. The list showed that NHS trusts in
London were most at risk, with eight of the 12 identified likely to
attract national media attention. he list also included 10 trusts from the
east of England, and nine each in the
north-west, south
central and south-east coast. David Batty
and agencies
Wednesday November 8, 2006 Guardian Unlimited
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Doctors to slow down treatment to save money.
Hospitals are being told not to treat patients "too promptly" because
improvements made in meeting Government targets are costing too much money.
GPs have been told not to refer non-urgent cases for hospital appointments
within 8 weeks, and hospital doctors have been told not to provide in-patient
or day-case operations within 20 weeks. A letter to all chief executives of
primary care trusts and hospitals in
Surrey, Sussex and
Kent, from the health authority, NHS South East
Coast, also tells hospitals that "capacity should be reduced" in
specialities where many outpatients are being seen within the eight-week rule.
This raises the prospect of cuts in doctors' and nurses' posts, not replacing
people who leave and transferring staff to other duties. The rationing of
patient care is a means of saving money in a health region which last year had
the biggest deficit in the country. This year the region expects to be £94m in
the red. The letter makes it clear that since the "minimum" waiting times were
set earlier this year, confusion has arisen. The situation is another example
of conflicting Labour health policies. The gradual introduction of the
electronic "Choose and Book"
system, which allows patients to choose their hospital and book the first
appointment at their GP's surgery, is a key Government health policy. It seems
to have revealed the availability of many, early outpatient appointments in
the most efficient departments. But after the latest directive, hospitals in
the South East are now fearful that if they advertise appointments which are
then given to patients who have waited less than 8 weeks they will not be
paid. As a result they have not been posting all free slots on the Choose and
Book computer. This destroys the purpose of programme - to give patients a
wide choice of hospitals. The letter lists 10 instructions to managers "in
order to maximise the use of the Choose and Book system and ensure that
routine patients are not seen too promptly". It confirms that the penalty for
treating too many patients quickly will be no payment for the treatments they
provide.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Telegraph
23 November 2006
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PCTs delayed on audiology contract. An audiology contract has been
delayed indefinitely because the provider has not been able to sign off
quality and safety guarantees with the Department of Health. The DoH had
awarded Mercury Health preferred bidder status to provide diagnostics services
to NHS patients across the West Midlands, on
behalf of the region's 17 primary care trusts. However the delay in the
audiology contract has left PCTs fearful that they may miss next year's
18-week maximum wait target. A DoH spokesman said Mercury Health had not yet
shown that it could 'ensure patient safety and high-quality healthcare for NHS
patients'. The contract would only proceed when this had been guaranteed, he
said. The DoH's contract with Mercury Health to provide other types of
diagnostics services to patients in the West Midlands will start at the end of
May, two months after the government's original deadline. In February, HSJ
revealed that BUPA had pulled out of a contract with the DoH to provide
diagnostic services across the South East.
Amicus InHealth, a joint venture between Amicus Healthcare and InHealth Group,
has won preferred bidder status on two of the diagnostics contracts in
London and the East of England. Atos
Origin will provide diagnostic services to patients in the
South West, and Alliance Medical has won
preferred bidder status for the North East.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Health
Service Journal 5 April 2007
- NHS cutbacks leave £500m unspent. The NHS has underspent by half a
billion pounds as a result of the aggressive cuts imposed by the health
secretary, Patricia Hewitt, a Guardian analysis of health authority figures
has revealed. The size of the underspend caused fury among health union
leaders yesterday, who said it was generated by an unnecessarily harsh squeeze
on spending during the winter months when many NHS trusts economised by
closing wards, axing jobs and delaying operations until the start of the new
financial year in April. ... The biggest surplus was in the
north-west, where the NHS ended the financial
year with £161m in spare cash. Other surpluses included £116m in
Yorkshire and Humberside,
£92m in
London and £73m in the north-east. The only deficits came in the
eastern region, which overspent by
£152m, and the south-east coast, which was
nearly £55m in the red. John Carvel, social affairs editor
Tuesday May 29, 2007 The Guardian
- Quarter of NHS trusts miss targets for superbug. One in four NHS
trusts in England admit they are failing to comply with hygiene regulations
introduced last year to halt the spread of MRSA and other hospital superbugs,
health inspectors disclose today. The Healthcare Commission said 99 of the 394
trusts confessed to not meeting all the standards included in a compulsory
hygiene code introduced by health ministers last October. Self-assessments by
the trusts show widespread hygiene problems, including failure to
decontaminate reusable medical equipment. Hygiene failings were admitted by 38
hospital trusts, the ambulance service in
Yorkshire,
Staffordshire and the South-East Coast
areas, mental health organisations and primary care trusts. John Carvel,
social affairs editor
Monday
June 18, 2007 The Guardian. Link to the
Healthcare Commission, including an Excel workbook with detail of self
assessments.
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Heat Map South East Coast
SHA forecasts
2006 07 South East Coast
Healthcare organisations weak for quality of services
Crawley Primary Care Trust
East Elmbridge and Mid Surrey Primary Care Trust
Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
Surrey Heath and Woking Primary Care Trust
Swale Primary Care Trust
Healthcare organisations weak for use of resources
Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust
Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust
Canterbury and Coastal Primary Care Trust
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust
Dartford, Gravesham and Swanley Primary Care Trust
East Elmbridge and Mid Surrey Primary Care Trust
East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust
East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust
Eastbourne Downs Primary Care Trust
Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust
Horsham and Chanctonbury Primary Care Trust
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust
Medway Primary Care Trust
Mid Sussex Primary Care Trust
Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust
Royal West Sussex NHS Trust
South West Kent Primary Care Trust
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust
Sussex Downs and Weald Primary Care Trust
Swale Primary Care Trust
West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust
Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust
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