|
The summary articles in the table below related to the strategic health
authority area are copied from the following pages, indicated in the table by
key numbers.
-
Charges
-
Construction projects
-
Resource shortfall Sources
-
Treatment approval or not
- Withdrawal of Local Facilities -
Sources
Other
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Summary articles |
| |
|
|
|
|
Where the treatment centres will be. The health secretary, John Reid, today
announced details of the government's controversial programme of privately run
fast-track diagnostic and treatment centres, and a number of new mobile
ophthalmology units. This guide explains where they will be.
Friday September 12, 2003 [South-west peninsula (Mercury Health Ltd),
Lincolnshire (Mercury Health Ltd), Horton hospital, north Oxford (Mercury Health
Ltd), North-east Yorks (Mercury Health Ltd), Southampton (Mercury Health Ltd),
Northumberland (Mercury Health Ltd), East Berkshire (Slough, Bracknell,
Maidenhead and Windsor/Ascot) (Mercury Health Ltd), Didcot, Oxfordshire (Mercury
Health Ltd), Ashford, Surrey (Mercury Health Ltd), Maidstone (Care UK Afrox),
Barlborough Links, Nottinghamshire (Care UK Afrox), Derriford, Plymouth (Care UK
Afrox), Chase Farm, Barnet, London (Anglo Canadian), King George hospital,
Redbridge (Anglo Canadian), Royal National throat nose and ear hospital, Kings
Cross, London (Anglo Canadian), Bradford (Nations Healthcare), Burton (Nations
Healthcare), Daventry (Birkdale Clinic), Trafford, Greater Manchester (Netcare
UK), Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore (New York Presbyterian),
Shepton Mallet, Somerset (New York Presbyterian).
Two mobile units will offer ophthalmology services in the following areas:
Cheshire and Merseyside (Netcare UK), Cumbria and Lancashire (Netcare UK),
Horton, Oxfordshire (Netcare UK), Wycombe, Bucks (Netcare UK), North Tyneside
(Netcare UK), South-west Oxfordshire (Netcare UK), North-west peninsula (Netcare
UK), Dorset/Somerset (Netcare UK), Kent/Medway (Netcare UK), Hants
and Isle of Wight (Netcare UK), Surrey and Sussex (Netcare UK), Thames Valley
(Netcare UK)] |
| |
|
|
4 |
|
A nurse with breast cancer is taking legal action to force the NHS to
prescribe her a powerful, life-saving drug which could significantly increase
her life expectancy. Barbara Clark, who has an 11-year-old son also with a
terminal illness, could be dead within months unless she gets the drug
Herceptin. So far her primary care trust has refused her the treatment, but
Clark, 49, will take her fight to the High Court if they do not change the
decision within a fortnight. Anushka Asthana, Martyn Halle and Jemma Gander
Sunday
September 18, 2005 The Observer
|
| |
|
|
4 |
|
A nurse with breast cancer is taking legal action against her health
authority to force it to give her a drug to fight the disease, it emerged
yesterday. Barbara Clark, 49, of Bridgwater, Somerset, is trying to use the
Human Rights Act, which enshrines a right to life, to compel Somerset Coast
Primary Care Trust to give her the drug, Herceptin. Though available
privately, the drug is only licensed to be used on NHS patients with advanced
cancer. Ms Clark is in remission after undergoing chemotherapy. Steven Morris
Tuesday
September 20, 2005 The Guardian
|
| |
|
|
4 |
|
A 49-year-old nurse with an aggressive breast cancer has won her battle to
obtain NHS treatment with Herceptin, an expensive new drug which can prevent
the life-threatening disease returning. Barbara Clark's victory sets a
precedent for potentially 10,000 women in Britain - a quarter of all those
diagnosed with breast cancer each year. Campaigners were jubilant yesterday,
but the decision will alarm those who hold the NHS purse strings. They are
likely to receive demands from other women for treatment that costs around
£20,000 a patient a year. Sarah Boseley, health editor
Tuesday
October 4, 2005 The Guardian [Somerset] |
| |
|
|
4 |
|
The new and expensive breast cancer drug Herceptin will be made available
on the NHS to any woman who can benefit from it, the health secretary
announced yesterday. The announcement by Patricia Hewitt follows the victory
of Barbara Clark, the 49-year-old nurse who persuaded her local health
authority to pay for her to have the £20,000-a-year drug and threatened to go
to the European court of human rights if they did not. Sarah Boseley, health
editor
Thursday October 6, 2005 The Guardian |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
West Dorset NHS
trust faces £2m debt. West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust is £2m
overspent and is reducing bed numbers, it says temporarily. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of BBC Online
30 January 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Can privatisation
help our health service? At the new Shepton Mallet diagnostic and treatment
centre, owned and run by private company New York Presbyterian Healthcare
System, the cost of every operation is 20% more than the NHS tarfiff.
Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of BBC Online 30
January 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
5 |
Community Hospitals at risk in Dorset and Somerset
SHA according to
Public Finance 17 March 2006:
Clevedon Hospital (actually
Avon,
Gloucestershire and Wiltshire SHA)
South Petherton Hospital |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Secret plan to
ration patient care. Patients are being denied appointments with
consultants in a systematic attempt to ration care and save the NHS money. The
leaked document - 'Pan
London Demand Management Arrangements 06-07' produced by the London
Transition Team, led by John Bacon, a senior NHS manager - shows that while
ministers promise patients choice, a series of barriers are being erected
limiting GPs' rights to refer people to consultants. Health trusts across
London have drawn up plans to establish panels that will monitor how many
patients are referred to hospital by GPs. Trusts have been told that they must
cut GP referral rates to those of the lowest 10%, saving £25m a year.
Consultant-to-consultant referrals are also being limited, in many cases
denying patients a second opinion. A&
E departments are being told to "redirect" 40-70% of patients back to
GPs or walk-in centres. Hospitals that treat people who ought to have been
sent to their GPs will not be paid. The bureaucracy needed to screen all the
referrals will itself cost £1.6m. The Times says: "The language of the
document makes no pretence that this will improve care, and emphasises cost
savings throughout. 'It is imperative that London balances its books overall,'
the first paragraph says." The BMA says similar schemes are running in
Kent,
Oxfordshire,
Dorset,
Wiltshire,
Surrey, Sussex,
Cornwall,
Shropshire,
Suffolk,
Lancashire and
Yorkshire, as well as London. Jonathan Fielden, deputy chairman
of the BMA consultants committee, said: "It's clear that clinicians don't know
how these referral management systems aid improvements in clinical care. To
them they are purely cost-saving. The way they work is not transparent or
clear. If clinicians don't know, patients cannot know either. That certainly
flies in the face of the Government's Patient Choice agenda." Myfanwy Davies
and Glyn Elwyn, of the Centre for Health Services Research at Cardiff, said
the centres had "appeared overnight in an evidence-free zone".
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Times 7 April 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Up to a third of
dentists won't sign NHS contract. Nearly a third of dentists in some
parts of England have refused to sign new NHS contracts - contradicting a
recent statement by Tony Blair that "about 90 to 95%" of dentists had signed
up. A leaked government document, showing exactly how many dentists in each
area have taken up the contracts, reveals that in the
south west, 29% of dentists have refused to sign up; in the
Thames
Valley, 15%; in
Hampshire, 18%; in
Yorkshire, 23%; and in the
West Midlands, 24%. In south-west
London, the
figure is 12%; in
Manchester, 11%; in
Kent,
14%; and in
Dorset, 15%. In
Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, 23% have not signed up. Of the
9,419 contracts offered in England, 1,096 have been rejected, including some
covering more than one dentist - a national average of 12% more than Mr
Blair's claim.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Telegraph 16 April 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
5 |
Children with cancer and leukaemia are among the frontline victims of
sweeping cuts being forced through to contain the health service's
ballooning financial deficits, nurses' leaders
warned last night. The
elderly and those with
mental health problems are also suffering, with the closure of beds in
community hospitals and the reduction in numbers of
specialist nurses needed to
treat them. Nurses' leaders yesterday published a dossier of examples to
back their claims and said their research disproved ministers' assertions
that trusts are seeking to balance their books without any detriment to
patient care. The warning came as Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary,
came under widespread attack for
claiming
yesterday that the NHS had just enjoyed its "best year ever". In a speech to
Unison's health conference in Gateshead today, Ms Hewitt is expected to
offer a stark message that the NHS must "modernise
or die". As part of a coordinated fightback she will say that, after the
additional resources put into the service by Labour over the past few years,
the NHS was now "back in business". Beverly Malone, general secretary of the
Royal College of Nursing, roundly denounced Ms Hewitt, saying that if this
was the best year for the NHS she dreaded to think what a worse one could be
like. Drawing from RCN research, she gave examples of how patient care was
being affected in second tier services for the vulnerable. Among the
examples were:
- Children with cancer and leukaemia in Taunton,
Somerset, are no longer being treated by a community nurse because the
local primary care trust withdrew funding it had promised to the
cancer charity
CLIC. The children now have to make long journeys for treatment, wrecking
their chances of continuing a normal life in their own community.
-
Avon and Wiltshire mental health trust has cut the number of beds by more
than 65 to less than 40. The frail and vulnerable have to go further afield
for treatment.
- In the
Cotswolds, 80 community beds have been closed within the last three months
to reduce deficits. A similar number have been lost in
Felixstowe.
- Ward closures in
Skegness has led to patients having to travel 40 miles to Lincoln.
- Minor injuries units are being closed and opening hours reduced.
Dr Malone said: "NHS deficits are hitting patient services; to claim
otherwise is simply wrong. These are real services for real people with real
illnesses, and we have got to stop treating them as statistics on a balance
sheet." Yesterday it emerged that Downing Street received a report from his
delivery unit last week pointing out that prospects for reaching 11 of the
government's 28
health
targets by 2008 were poor. The Department of Health declined to name the
11 targets that received "red traffic lights", but it was understood they
included public health
objectives such as improved sexual health and reduced children's obesity.
John Carvel and Tania Branigan
Monday April 24, 2006 The Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
|
A foundation trust in
Somerset appears to have discovered how to crack the problem of NHS
waiting lists. If all goes according to plan, every patient attending Yeovil
district hospital will be treated within 18 weeks of being referred there by
a GP. The trust's clinicians expect to achieve that goal by the end of
March. John Carvel
Wednesday July 5, 2006 The Guardian |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Patients
turned away over dispute. A
foundation hospital is
turning patients away because of a dispute with the primary care trust over
money. The Royal
Bournemouth Hospital claims it is owed more than
£6m for operations it carried out last year. From Monday non-urgent
patients will have to go elsewhere but cancer patients, emergencies and
urgent cases will continue to be treated as usual. Up to 10,000 patients may
now have to travel to other hospitals in Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset for
their treatment. The hospital, which treats more than 400,000 patients a
year, said it is carrying out treatment costing £1m a month more than the
PCT is paying. Dr Simon Parvin said: "We can only treat patients if we are
paid for those treatments. As a foundation trust the rules that we work by
demand that all treatments that we provide are paid for in full. So if the
PCT, which commissions care on behalf of the GPs, is not able to pay then
we're not able to provide that treatment." Anne Swan, of Bournemouth PCT,
said: "The primary care trust has set up a referrals office and we've asked
all GPs to refer directly to us so we can make sure that patients are not
delayed in the treatment they require and we can place them with a range of
local providers."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 28 June 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Funding row
could see 1,800 patients rejected by foundation. A
foundation trust has
become the first in the country to turn patients away after the escalation
of a public row with its primary care trust over funding. Up to 1,800
patients could be sent back to GPs - the first time a trust has refused to
take non-urgent referrals since the introduction of
payment by results. Monitor has
called Royal
Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals foundation trust, Bournemouth
teaching PCT and their strategic health authority into a crisis meeting.
Foundation Trust Network director Sue Slipman told HSJ there were nine other
cases in the pipeline, worth £28m, where PCTs and foundation trusts
cannot agree funding for activity. RBCH foundation
trust accused its PCT of "refraining from funding life-saving drugs and
complex heart treatments" and said the PCT had "requested" the stop on
non-urgent referrals. But PCT chief executive Debbie Fleming said it had
been the foundation trust's decision to stop the non-urgent referrals: "We
are very disappointed that the foundation trust has found it necessary to
stop accepting routine referrals as we believe this action to be both
inappropriate and unnecessary. And it will not stop the problem of
over-performance." Foundation trust chief executive Tony Spotswood said that
25 to 40% of elective referrals would have to be turned away. The trust
estimated a shortfall in funding for up to 11,000 treatments, which could
lead to the closure of some services. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health
Service Journal
29 June 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Hospitals
snub patients in cash row. The Royal
Bournemouth and Christchurch Trust, one of the government's flagship
foundation trusts, is turning away patients in a funding row that calls into
question the governments NHS funding policies. The hospital trust has said
that Bournemouth PCT has indicated it wants the hospital to take fewer
referrals and as a result will turn away up to 1,800 patients. The PCT
attacked the hospital for its behaviour in light of the foundation trust
running a £1.5m surplus. Under the
payment by results system, hospitals get money for each patient they
treat, yet Bournemouth PCT argues that if it were to pay the £6.3m over and
above the contract to treat the extra patients, the knock on effects for the
area would be detrimental to all. Mr Simon Parvin, the hospital trust's
medical director, said that from the hospital's view "it doesn't feel as
though the system is working." Chris Ham, professor of health services
management at Birmingham University said problems with payment by results
"are emerging elsewhere." He added: "This is not an isolated problem." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Financial
Times 30 June 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Ministers miss
key deadline for PBC as chaos dogs scheme. Practice-based commissioning
is falling way behind schedule, with more than half of GPs shunning the
scheme due to a catalogue of problems. Only two out of five GPs have so far
signed up amid doubts over their ability to keep savings and unreasonable
demands being set by PCTs desperate to save money. Even those GPs who have
agreed local plans are claiming the process has been a worthless exercise. A
Pulse survey of 61 PCTs covering 2,038 practices has found just 38% of GPs
had agreed a local plan with their PCT by the end of June. The government
target by this time was 100%. Despite having come nowhere near the target,
health minister Lord Warner said the fact 3,454 practices were involved
showed the NHS was "surging ahead" in adopting the Government's reforms. But
in Kent,
Hampshire,
Somerset and Dorset, no GPs had signed up.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Pulse 7 July 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Hospital's
'£6m dispute' resolved. A
foundation hospital has
resumed normal treatment after resolving a pay dispute with a care trust
which saw patients being turned away. The Royal
Bournemouth Hospital had claimed it was owed more
than £6m following operations carried out after referrals from the
area's PCT. A financial settlement was reached on Monday which removed
patient limits.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 18 July 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
5 |
Hospital beds
under threat. Health bosses are considering axing a third of inpatient
beds at Chard Hospital to make way for other services, the News can reveal.
South
Somerset Primary Care Trust says the downstairs ward, which has ten
beds, could be turned into extra clinic space, diagnostic facilities or a
designated area for blood transfusions. Although no decision has been taken,
the trust is considering what to do when refurbishment work on the two
upstairs wards is completed later this month. Virginia Pearson, chief
executive of South Somerset PCT, acknowledged there may be some public
concern. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Chard
& Ilminster News 3 August 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
More hospital
staff face job loss threat. Job cuts at yet another West NHS trust
looked inevitable last night as bosses told staff they are no longer
confident of avoiding redundancies after failing to make £6.5million of
savings. Union officials are already threatening strikes to prevent any
compulsory redundancies at the Taunton and
Somerset NHS Trust, based at the county town's Musgrove Park Hospital.
In a letter to all staff, trust bosses dropped the bombshell that despite a
massive cost-cutting drive they still had to find another £1million of cuts
if they were to balance the books by March next year. When the trust
revealed the £6.5million black hole in April, it admitted there were
"significant challenges". Although it said beds could be lost, it insisted
the move was not expected to lead to redundancies.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Western
Daily Press 3 August 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Job cuts at
hospital? Job losses are on the cards at
Taunton's Musgrove Park Hospital despite months of denials by hospital
bosses. In a letter sent out to all staff on Tuesday the chief executive
Mike Williams and Mike Slade, chair of the joint staff side trade unions,
said: "We are no longer confident that redundancies can be avoided". The
hospital trust has said it needs to save £6.5 million this year and has been
undergoing various restructuring to meet this target. However, the hospital
is still £1million short and so has admitted it is now looking at
redundancies. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Somerset
News 4 August 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Choice of
hospital exposed as a sham. Patients are being denied treatment at their
chosen hospital to ensure Government waiting targets are not breached. A
Pulse inquiry has uncovered numerous examples of PCTs deleting popular
hospitals from the menu of choices available to GPs using Choose and Book to
ensure no patient waits longer than 13 weeks. The move has left GPs
increasingly unable to book slots at patients' preferred hospital, forcing
people to travel long distances to less popular clinics even when they would
prefer to wait longer. The clinician in charge of
Choose and Book has even
revealed PCT chief executives could be at risk of the sack if they allowed
patients to book slots past 13 weeks. Dr Mark Davies, clinical lead for
Choose and Book at Connecting for Health, said the system allowed slots to
be booked up to 180 days ahead - but commissioners had the power to take
hospitals off menus if they could not offer a booking inside the 13-week
target. He said: "It would be unusual for any chief executive that wants to
remain in post to release slots that can be booked past 13 weeks." Areas and
specialities where choice is being restricted include orthopaedics in
Bristol and
Exeter; ENT and cardiology in
Cornwall; foot and ankle surgery in
Leeds;
ENT and orthopaedics in
Liverpool and
Swanage; and various specialities in
Milton
Keynes. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Pulse 11 August 2006. [This seems to force patients to accept an
offer involving long travelling even if they would prefer to wait slightly
longer for the local hospital] |
| |
|
|
|
|
Six new hospitals for the West. Plans for privately-run surgery
centres operating on tens of thousands of patients across the West have been
unveiled. Health chiefs have signed a deal with a private firm UK Specialist
Hospitals to open six new day surgery hospitals, including three in places
where NHS community hospitals are under threat. Health bosses say the new
Independent Sector
Treatment Centres (ISTCs) will carry out as many as 28,000 operations
and 42,000 other appointments across
Gloucestershire, Wiltshire,
Somerset and
Bristol. West Wilts MP Dr Andrew Murrison said: "I am concerned that
ISTCs of this sort are very costly and the tab will be picked up several
years from now. I'm also concerned with the difficulties treatment centres
cause for the training of junior staff. They tend to be conveyor belt
operations, with no opportunities for junior doctors to
learn their craft as they do now
in larger hospitals."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Western Daily Press 17 August 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
5 |
Axe will fall on
mental health unit. Health bosses are meeting on Friday to agree the
closure of the six remaining in-patient beds at Bracken House, Chard's
mental health unit.
Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust, which operates the
county's mental health services, says the move is needed to avoid an
overspend of £1m by the end of the financial year. The trust wants to close
the beds by October but the move has been greeted with anger by town
leaders. Chard Mayor John Malcolm said there was an established need for
inpatient beds in Chard.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Somerset
News 31 August 2006 |
| |
|
3 |
|
|
Hospital
staff asked to take unpaid leave. Staff at Musgrove Park Hospital in
Taunton are being asked to take a day or more of unpaid leave to help
generate more than £1million in savings. But the suggestion has been slammed
by some workers as unacceptable. Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust is currently
trying to save £1.3m. Staff have also been asked to consider taking part in
a voluntary redundancy scheme.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Somerset
News 31 August 2006 |
| |
2 |
|
|
|
Hospital projects
to receive Autumn announcement. 11 NHS hospital projects, which are
currently under review, will receive a decision in the autumn. They are:
Hillingdon Hospital redevelopment - £271m;
Leeds
Maternity and Childrens Hospital scheme - £204m; North
Bristol and South Gloucestershire scheme - £310m; North
Mersey Future Healthcare Project - £1bn;
Northwick Park
and St Marks redevelopment - £305m;
Papworth Hospital NHS Trust redevelopment - £148m; Royal National
Orthopaedic Hospital Stanmore scheme - £121m;
Sandwell and West Birmingham Acute Trust - £591m;
Southend
Hospital redevelopment - £100m;
Taunton Surgical Centre - £75m;
Watford and Hatfield Hospitals redevelopment - £880m.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of PFI.net 31
August 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
5 |
Approval for beds
closure. The closure of the last beds at Bracken House, Chard's mental
health unit, was approved at a meeting of health bosses. The board of the
Somerset Partnership NHS and Social Care Trust agreed to close with
immediate effect the six remaining in-patient beds for adults with mental
health problems. The move has attracted strong criticism from town leaders
in Chard. Director of social care Diana Rowe said it was not yet known how
much money the move would save.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Somerset
News 7 September 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
High street drug
retailer to open first GP surgery at Dorset store. Alliance Boots is to
open the first GP surgery in a high street chain after signing a deal with
the NHS to open a healthcare centre in Poole,
Dorset. The move is part of a government drive. The NHS is keen to
expand the use of the private sector and has been in talks with supermarket
chains. Boots, meanwhile, has been working hard to reposition itself as a
health expert following its $8bn (£4.1bn) merger with Alliance Unichem, the
pan-European drug distribution company, earlier this year. J Sainsbury is
also planning to open a surgery in a store this year, renting out space to
an NHS doctor. Boots said it hoped the Poole centre would be the first of
many such partnerships. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Financial
Times 14 December 2006 |
| |
2 |
|
|
|
£750m cottage hospital plan under way. The
first of a new generation of NHS
cottage hospitals will be announced by the Department of Health today,
kickstarting a £750m programme to move minor operations away from the big
general hospitals and closer to people's homes. Lord Warner, the health
minister, will sign a deal to build community hospitals to serve patients
living on the fringes of
Sunderland,
Bristol,
Gosport and
Minehead. They will provide minor surgery, medical tests and follow-up
care for about 75,000 patients a year.
Scores of cottage hospitals across England had been under threat of closure.
Some, but not all, will be saved and given new or upgraded accommodation.
Ministers think patients will benefit from having a full range of diagnostic
tests closer to their homes. But the move will reduce the income of the big
hospitals, with A&E departments offering a full range of medical services.
Some may be forced to close departments. John Carvel, social affairs editor
Thursday December 21, 2006 The Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
|
Boots to open GP
surgery. Boots will open the first GP surgery in one of its high street
stores next month. The surgery in the centre of Poole,
Dorset, will open between the hours of 8.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday,
with an out-of-hours service being considered for later in the year.
Patients will need an appointment to access a GP and initial services will
include blood tests, physiotherapy, acute back pain services and
ultrasounds. The high-street chemist chain said it had been approached by
Bournemouth and Poole PCT to host the surgery. GPs said traditional
practices offered a far greater range of services. Dr Nigel Watson, chief
executive of Wessex LMCs, said the Poole surgery was being sold as a
one-stop shop, when in fact it was only offering niche services. 'It's not
actually a thorough GP service that is being provided but more intermediate
care,' said Dr Watson. 'It's not additional care; you could walk into a
hospital and receive the treatments. I think it is being dressed up as
something it's not.' Supermarket chain J Sainsbury announced earlier this
year that it planned to open a GP surgery in one of its stores. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Pulse 21 December 2006 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Asda plans
late-night doctors' surgeries. Asda is planning to become the first
supermarket to open after-hours GP surgeries in its stores across Britain.
The supermarket, owned by US giant Wal-Mart, is in talks with several
primary care trusts that could provide emergency surgeries for the company.
These would be open throughout the night and at weekends. The Government's
recent health White Paper recommended that retailers consider hosting GP
surgeries on the high street to make them more accessible for patients.
Boots has already announced plans to open daytime surgeries in its larger
outlets after a successful trial with the
Bournemouth and Poole NHS Trust. It is thought to be planning about a
dozen surgeries. Sainsbury's has similar plans. Asda's plans are at an early
stage, according to a spokeswoman for the retailer. The company was still in
preliminary talks with primary care trusts. Only patients affiliated with
local surgeries would be able to use the emergency practices. It might also
be possible for a store's pharmacy section to open during the night to serve
patients visiting the surgery. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Independent
4 February 2007 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Care home shuts after two arrests as police investigate deaths.
Detectives are investigating seven deaths among residents at an elderly
people's home, which was closed yesterday following the arrest of a nurse
and a chef on suspicion of poisoning. The couple were released on bail after
police questions about the death of 97-year-old Lucy Cox at the 16-bed
private Parkfields home, in the
Somerset village of Butleigh, near Glastonbury. Martin Wainwright
Friday March 16, 2007 The Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
|
Police to exhume three former care home residents as seven deaths deemed
suspicious. Police will today begin exhumations of elderly people who
were living at a care home, as part of a widening investigation into concern
about how they died. Detectives will announce they are investigating at
least seven suspicious deaths at the Parkfields residential care home near
Glastonbury,
Somerset. In what officers admit is a "drastic step", the remains of
Nellie Mary Pickford, who died almost a year ago at 89, will be removed from
a graveyard. A postmortem will try to establish how she died, after which
she will be reburied. Over the next five weeks, two further former residents
of the home in Butleigh will be exhumed and examined. They follow the arrest
of a registered nurse, Rachel Baker, 42, and her husband, Leigh, a
48-year-old chef, who ran the home. Mrs Baker was questioned on suspicion of
administering a noxious substance, and Mr Baker of "being concerned" in the
administering. Both are on bail. The police inquiry began after concerns
were raised by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), which
registers, inspects, and reports on social care services in England. Its
concern followed the death of one resident, Lucy Cox, aged 97, at the home
on New Year's Day. Steven Morris
Tuesday June 5, 2007 Guardian
|
| |
2 |
|
|
|
£13m boost to
mental illness services. A £13m redevelopment of St Ann's Hospital in
Poole is being proposed as part of measures aimed at improving services for
people suffering from mental illness.
Dorset HealthCare Trust wants to refurbish the Canford Cliffs hospital.
It also wants to cut the number of beds by 32 and reduce staff by up to 25
as part of a shift towards providing more treatment in the community. The
£750,000 annual savings would be invested in services, and the trust expects
the St Ann's staff can be redeployed elsewhere in the organisation. The
far-reaching proposals are now the subject of a three-month public
consultation period, ending on October 15.
Summary by Keep
our NHS Public of Dorset
Daily Echo 23 July 2007 |
| |
|
|
|
5 |
Two more meetings
over injury unit plan. Two more public meetings have been called about
controversial proposals to shut down Swanage's minor injuries unit at night.
Dorset Primary Care Trust has suggested closing the unit, which is
currently open 24 hours a day, from 10pm to 8am, claiming it's underused
during that time. But the move has provoked outcry in the town and at a
public meeting last month, not one of the 300 people present voted in favour
of the change. According to the Trust, only 97 people used the unit between
10pm and 8am last year, but it costs £100,000 a year to keep it open
overnight. But protestors are fighting to keep the unit's 24-hour coverage
for local people in Swanage, and have set up a campaign group called Open
All Hours to oppose the trust's proposals.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Dorset
Echo 13 August 2007
|
| |
2 |
|
|
|
One-stop health
shop. Axbridge Surgery is set to become one of the first practices in
Somerset to have social workers, physiotherapists, mental health
practitioners and the Citizens Advice Bureau based in its building. The
extra care workers would be able to offer patients help in their own homes
to try to prevent hospital stays and recurring health problems, as well as
help with social issues which can affect people's wellbeing. Axbridge
Surgery has applied to Somerset Primary Care Trust (PCT) to take part in the
pilot study to see how well the different agencies work together. Axbridge
Surgery is currently getting a £500,000 extension to triple the size of its
facilities. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Weston
& Somerset Mercury 21 August 2007 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Hospital bans flowers as health risk. Grapes
are still deemed appropriate and boxes of chocolates welcomed, but a
hospital has banned gifts of flowers because of fears that they pose a
health risk. Visitors arriving at
Dorset county hospital in Dorchester armed with a bouquet will be
politely but firmly told that the blooms are not allowed on the premises.
Florists in Dorset and flower delivery companies have been warned about the
ban, which covers all wards, including the maternity unit. Hospital
officials argue that harmful bacteria can grow in the water and spread germs
among patients if spilt. Steven Morris
Thursday September 6, 2007 The Guardian
Out-of-hours doctors first to use NHS database. Doctors providing
out-of-hours care in north-west England will be the first to get access to a
controversial database storing summaries of patients' medical records, NHS
chiefs disclosed yesterday. The scheme was criticised by the British Medical
Association and computer privacy experts last year when ministers unveiled
plans to put the medical records of 50 million patients on to an electronic
national database known as the Spine. Fears about the database included the
worry that patients' sensitive personal details might be leaked by
inquisitive NHS staff, or extracted by computer hackers. After a Guardian
campaign, ministers conceded that patients should have the right to stop
their medical files being passed from GPs to the database. Connecting for
Health, the NHS's IT procurement agency, said trials in
Bolton and Bury, as well as in
Dorset and south
Birmingham, showed that less than 1% of patients wanted to opt out. The
agency has put about 50,000 summary patient records on the database,
including details of medications and allergies. Doctors providing
out-of-hours cover in Bolton are being issued with smart cards and asked to
register passwords for access to the Spine so they can extract the records
of patients they treat, when surgeries are closed. The scheme will later be
extended to give hospital staff and paramedics access to the database. The
Bolton trial was the first test of whether patients would accept the
government's argument that a national electronic record could save lives, or
whether they would agree with privacy campaigners who see it as a lurch
towards a Big Brother state. Gillian Braunold, clinical director of the
Summary Care Record and HealthSpace programme, said about 237,000 patients
in Bolton were sent explanatory letters on the scheme but only 2,200 had
asked to opt out. A survey found most patients were aware of the letter and
were not unhappy that they had been viewed as giving "implied consent". The
primary care trust has already uploaded records at eight of Bolton's 57 GP
practices. However, many of the town's GPs want the project to be scrapped.
A survey of 98 doctors found two-thirds did not want their patients' records
uploaded and made available online to hospital staff. Bernard Newgrosh, a GP
at the Great Lever health centre, Bolton, said he was "totally against" the
project. But Dr Braunold said a further 24 practices wanted to join the
scheme. The trial would achieve a "critical mass" of patients, each of whom
would get an "entrust card" allowing them access to their own records -
information to which they could add details, such as religious affiliation
and attitude to organ donation. For security, patients would not be able to
gain access to the record without their unique card. Dr Braunold said the
scheme would be extended throughout England next year or the year after.
John Carvel, social affairs editor
The Guardian
Thursday October 25 2007
|
| |
|
|
|
|
Fears over
patients' NHS records. A Freedom of Information Request has revealed
that patients' confidential records are regularly being accessed by people
with no right to them. The figures show that there have been several data
security breaches in the West. The Government has spent over £13bn on
digitizing the medical records of every patient in Britain by 2010.
Confidential records should only ever be seen by medical staff working with
the patient concerned. However there have been incidents in
Gloucester and Cheltenham where staff have shared passwords, giving
access to records. A similar breach occurred in Bath's Royal United
Hospital, while breeches in security also occurred in Swindon and Bristol,
where a member of staff was caught looking at friends' records. One
Somerset GP told of two occasions where he had encountered inappropriate
access to the records. GP Dr Harry Yoxal said: "On the first occasion an
employer of a relatively small computer supplier to the NHS was looking up
information about one of his relatives by getting access to a GP medical
records system. Then an employee of a hospital trust was using his access to
their medical system to look up information about one of his relatives." A
Campaigner from pressure group Opt Out is encouraging people to remove
themselves from the database. Helen Wilkinson said: "My concerns are that
they need to put more stringent safeguards in place and also that they need
to consider, perhaps, smaller local databases that actually link up, but
with explicit patient consent, so that would put the patient in control." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of BBC
30 November 2007 |
| |
|
|
|
|
Care home couple held over residents' deaths. A couple who ran a care
home for elderly people in
Somerset were arrested and questioned by detectives about the alleged
murder of five residents yesterday. Rachel Baker, 45, a registered nurse,
and her husband, Leigh, 48, a chef, were also interviewed on suspicion of
theft, drug possession and attempting to pervert the course of justice. The
decision to detain the couple followed exhumations at several cemeteries.
Toxicology tests are believed to have been carried out on the bodies. Owen
Bowcott
Tuesday December 11, 2007 The Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
|
Bird flu virus confirmed after deaths at Dorset
swannery. Government vets were last night awaiting the results of tests
on more dead birds discovered in southern England, following confirmation
that three swans in
Dorset had the deadly H5N1 flu strain. The environment department,
Defra, said the dead birds had been found at Abbotsbury swannery by routine
surveillance, and efforts were under way to discover where the virus came
from; the outbreak poses little risk to human health. Swannery staff are
being monitored for symptoms and have been given Tamiflu tablets as a
precaution. David Adam and Steven Morris
Friday
January 11, 2008 The Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Heat Map South West
Community Hospitals under threat. Map and index
Telegraph 8 February 2007
|
Closed |
Threat of closure/loss of service |
Under review |
| Dorset and Somerset former
Strategic Health Authority |
| South Petherton |
|
|
|
|
|
PETITIONS
|
