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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
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Construction projects
-
Resource shortfall Sources
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Treatment approval or not
- Withdrawal of Local Facilities -
Sources
Other
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Summary articles |
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Effect of NHS
financial crisis felt around Yorkshire. At Barnsley's hospital, £700,000
has been saved with the loss of 35 posts; Rotherham hospital is planning to
slash pay costs of non-clinical staff by 10%; hospitals in Sheffield are
trying to save £20m due to losses resulting from payment by results and the
extra costs of meeting targets; beleaguered Selby and York PCT has predicted
debts of £23.7m, and Sheffield's PCTs have combined deficits of £17; Airedale
NHS Trust has had to sell former staff residences and increase car parking
charges to try to stay in balance. Hundreds of operations are being delayed in
north Lincolnshire. Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale PCT, facing a £6.5m
overspend, is interrogating hospitals as to why operations are being performed
within a month. The trust's director of finance said: "There are more people
going into hospital than we can afford. Hospitals in York and Scarborough are
treating patients in three months - the national target is six months - and we
are looking to slow some of those procedures." Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 4 January 2006 |
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Nine in ten say
NHS will not break even next year. Only 13% of NHS chief executives
surveyed by HSJ expect the NHS to break even by April 2007, as Patricia Hewitt
has demanded. 32% forecast their own trust would still be in debt. King's Fund
chief economist John Appleby said: "'There has got to be much better costing
of current policies. What impact is patient choice going to have on demand
? We have no idea. I do not think they have thought it through. The
major policy this government has pursued since Labour came to power has been
to improve access to hospitals by cutting waiting times, but we have never
seen a figure on how much this has cost the NHS." The full 18 trusts named by
Hewitt as being the worst performing are: Acute - Hammersmith Hospitals;
Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals; Mid Yorkshire Hospitals; The Royal West
Sussex; Surrey and Sussex Healthcare; Brighton and Sussex University
Hospitals; University Hospital of North Staffordshire; Shrewsbury and Telford
Hospitals; George Eliot Hospital (Nuneaton). Primary Care Trusts - Hillingdon
(London); Selby and York; Cheshire West; West Wiltshire; Kennet and North
Wiltshire; Sheffield PCTs (four organisations).
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 26 January 2006 |
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Oxygen requests
flood pharmacy. Patients who need life-saving oxygen have flooded a
Sheffield pharmacy with urgent requests for help after problems with deliveries
since a private firm took over the contract. Around 70 patients with breathing
difficulties contacted Wicker Pharmacy in Sheffield when they could not get gas
cylinders from their new privatised supplier, Air Products UK. Although
pharmacies are no longer responsible they have been willing to step in and fill
in the gaps in the service. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of
Sheffield Star 21 February 2006 |
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Special help
plan for fat kids is scrapped. Plans to set up a dedicated hospital
service for obese children in South Yorkshire have been shelved because of a
lack of funds. It is doubtful whether the scheme at Sheffield Children's
Hospital will ever go ahead, despite the government's campaign against
childhood obesity. A report by public sector watchdogs the National Audit
Office, the Healthcare Commission and Audit Commission has criticised the lack
of guidance on offer on how to meet centrally set obesity targets.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Sheffield Star 3 March 2006 |
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Outrage over
staff parking at hospital. Hundreds of staff at the Northern General
Hospital in Sheffield have signed petitions against management plans to make
them pay £260 a year to park their cars at work. Trade unions including
Unison, the RCN, Amicus and unions representing physiotherapists and
radiographers are circulating petitions to persuade managers at the Sheffield
Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to drop the proposals.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Sheffield Star 6 March 2006 |
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More jobs to go
as hospital plunges into £5m deficit. Jobs are being cut at Rotherham
Hospital. The Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust said it could not rule out
compulsory redundancies, and is designating 30 jobs "at risk". Last year the
trust slashed staffing levels by 10%. Now bosses say they are having to save
a further £4.9m.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 22 March
2006 |
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PbR under the
microscope: what the South Yorks boffins found. York University has been
running a 'South Yorkshire laboratory', a DoH commissioned study of how
payment by results is changing healthcare in South Yorkshire, where all four
of the county's acute trusts are
foundation hospitals, meaning PbR has been
rolled out further than in the rest of the country. The report found that
commissioners must ensure that they are getting exactly what they want from
their providers, who as foundation trusts now have a very powerful incentive
to generate as much income as possible. The report questions whether providers
are inducing demand in a system that their commissioning client can currently
neither control nor, in many cases, afford.
Sheffield PCTs in particular have blamed aggressive foundation trusts for
their debt problems. One report
interviewee said: "I'm not suggesting at all that the hospitals are gaming on
non-elective or elective work: they're maximising as much as they can get away
with because everything gets a tariff. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals foundation
trust chief executive Andrew Cash.says acute trusts are beginning to stop
running certain services because they are not profitable. He warns that the
new system is not well suited to emergency non-elective care or to chronic
conditions and long-term care pathways.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 6 April 2006 |
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Angry dentists
quit the NHS in droves. One in nine dental practices in Yorkshire have
quit the NHS amid anger over their new contracts. Ninety practices out of
800 in the region have left for the private sector.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 6 April 2006 [North and East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire Strategic
Health Authority,
South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority,
West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority] |
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Job losses at
hospital.
Sheffield Children's Hospital Trust is to axe 150 jobs as part of a £9m
cost cutting exercise, according to unions. Union reps say bosses plan not
to replace 50 jobs each year when staff leave, a policy that will continue
over three years. Jon Smith, GMB representative at the hospital, said the
hospital is "being forced into making cuts", and that the financial problem
has got worse as the new payments-by-results system has been introduced.
There is concern the system penalises children's hospitals, because it does
not take into account their specialist role and the additional costs
involved in treating complex problems.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Sheffield Star 14 April 2006 |
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Four
children's hospitals have warned health ministers they will have to cut
specialist services because of miscalculations in the new
payments-by-results system championed by Tony Blair as part of his NHS
reforms. The threat to specialist services for children was revealed by the
Liberal Democrats, who released papers showing children's trusts have told
ministers they will have to cut services because they claim they are facing
a £22m shortfall in the new financial year. The letter was sent by the
chairs and chief executives of
Great Ormond Street,
Alder Hey,
Birmingham and
Sheffield hospitals. Together the four hospitals form the National
Children's Health Alliance, and they claim the proposed funding will damage
the provision of cardiac surgery, neurosurgery and spinal surgery.
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Tuesday April 18, 2006 The Guardian |
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Children's hospitals 'at risk' from
tariff system. Four
children's hospitals have warned health ministers they will have to cut
specialist services because of miscalculations in the new payments by
results system that will see them face a £22m shortfall in this financial
year. The letter to ministers was sent by the chairs and chief executives of
Great Ormond Street,
Alder Hey,
Birmingham and
Sheffield hospitals, who together form the National Children's Health
Alliance. It says: "We are extremely concerned that vital specialist
paediatric capacity, particularly in surgical specialities, will be lost at
regional and national level this year, which will lead to public concern.
The new opportunities presented by choice and through payment-by-results
should be benefiting young people and children, but quite the reverse seems
to be the case. Our trusts are increasingly the only place of choice for
parents whose children need specialist paediatric care." The trusts blame
the "inaccurate and highly insensitive tariff" under payments by results. To
make ends meet, they say, they will have to identify those services on which
they stand to lose most money and stop providing them. Obvious candidates
include heart, brain and spinal surgery. "We are extremely concerned that
vital specialist paediatric capacity, particularly in surgical specialties,
will be lost at regional and national levels this year, which will lead to
public concern."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Times
18 April 2006 |
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NHS levy on
trusts 'will lead to cuts in services'. Health chiefs have warned of
wider cuts in services in Yorkshire under plans to impose a levy on NHS
trusts as part of desperate efforts to shore-up health service finances.
Gordon Firth, chairman of
Barnsley
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said his organisation would lose £6m and
inevitably frontline services would be affected. Health chiefs in
North Lincolnshire predict the levy will cost £4.5m, further adding to a
difficult financial position. A 12-point action plan is being drawn up
including deferring non-urgent surgery, reducing hospital referrals and
outpatient follow-up appointments and cutting spending on mental health and
the voluntary care sector.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 20 April 2006 [also
West
Yorkshire] |
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Treatment centre
programme in disarray as contracts axed. The DoH has been forced to
scrap a large swathe of its second-wave
independent
treatment centre programme nearly a year after it invited private sector
organisations to bid for the lucrative contracts. Seven of the 24 local
schemes have been axed, with the rest being delayed by up to a year. Those
axed include two of the most high profile schemes, in
South
Yorkshire. The climbdown came after the DoH was forced to acknowledge
claims by SHAs and PCTs that more elective capacity was not needed in their
regions. Companies bidding for the work received letters from the DoH's
commercial directorate saying: "It has become clear for a variety of reasons
that the detailed make-up of the schemes needs to be reviewed and that these
schemes will not go ahead as part of the phase-two procurement programme. We
are currently exploring options to replace the capacity of these schemes."
The DoH has told
private providers that the monetary value of the schemes - £550m worth
of work per year - will still be guaranteed. Meanwhile the other 17
remaining schemes have been delayed for up to a year. NHS Confederation
policy director Nigel Edwards said: "What is becoming increasingly clear is
that the level of surgical elective capacity is enough, if not too much. The
problem is now one of patient flow rather than capacity, and there has been
a growing anxiety that too much capacity had been procured and this has
become a big issue." The second part of the wave two contract, known as the
'extended choice network', under which the DoH was set to buy elective
services on top of the initial national schemes, has also been delayed
indefinitely. However, the diagnostic element of the second wave is
unaffected. The cancelled projects are:
County Durham and Tees Valley - multi-specialty treatment centre;
Birmingham and the Black Country - Birmingham City treatment centre to
be housed on site at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals trust;
South
Yorkshire - cardiology treatment centre;
South
Yorkshire - general surgery treatment centre;
South West Peninsula - multi-specialty mobile unit;
West
Yorkshire - plastic surgery unit;
West
Yorkshire - multi-specialty treatment centre.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 27 April 2006 |
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South
Yorks lobbying killed off proposals. Managers in South Yorkshire say
heavy lobbying about unneeded and destabilising independent sector capacity
led to the cancellation of two
independent
treatment centres proposed for the area. The £200m general surgery
centre based in Sheffield and a £40m cardiology centre for Rotherham and
Barnsley foundation trust were two of the seven ITCs axed. South Yorkshire
SHA is now in discussions with the DoH to procure £11m worth of primary and
community care services instead. In September last year the SHA was ordered
by the DoH to find £18m worth of extra work for the second-wave procurement
after its original plans assumed the region needed just £3.2m in private
provision. Senior managers in the five foundation trusts - which form the
country's first foundation 'community' - were understood to be 'very
concerned' that the DoH's proposals could jeopardise their business plans.
One chief executive said he was concerned the DoH would "try to replace the
scrapped scheme with
additional capacity in other types of services across the region, which
would not be needed either".
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 27 April 2006 |
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Nurses forecast 13,000 jobs to go.
Barking, Havering
and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trust has announced it is to shed 650 posts
and 190 beds to tackle a £24m deficit. 30% of the losses will be clinical
posts.
Barnsley District Hospital has announced it is to cut 150 jobs.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Telegraph 1 May 2006 |
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£25m health
debt fears.
Sheffield's four PCT have announced a total of £25m of debt that could
lead to cutbacks in frontline health services. Andy Buck, chief executive of
Sheffield North PCT warned Sheffield Council's scrutiny committee that he
could not rule out service reductions as the trusts try to balance their
books. Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust reported a £35m
deficit. Chris Linacre, director of service development for the trust,
complained that the Department of Health had not assessed the cost of
ongoing reform properly.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Sheffield Star 9 May 2006 |
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Health staff
join protests over curbs on spending. The cuts at
Leeds
Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust come after the most financially successful 12
months in its six-year history - it broke even without any outside help for
the first time. Other NHS hospitals in Yorkshire that have already announced
millions of pounds of cuts include
Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley,
Hull, York, Harrogate and
Airedale.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 12 May 2006 |
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NHS Direct, the nurse-led
health helpline, will today axe more than 1,000 staff in a comprehensive
restructuring of branches and business objectives, the Guardian has learned.
Proposals will be presented for consultation with staff unions to close 12
call centres across England and shed more than a quarter of the workforce to
avert a forecast £15m deficit for 2006-07. The move follows an announcement
yesterday by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS trust that it plans to shed
1,200 jobs to avoid a deficit of £60m - caused partly by a new
payment-by-results system introduced last month. The Nottingham cuts - like
most of the 13,000 hospital job losses over the past few months - will be
achieved largely through staff turnover, with few compulsory redundancies.
But NHS Direct said up to 114 of its nurses may be sacked, along with
managers and administrators. NHS Direct was founded in 1997 to provide a
24-hour telephone helpline advising patients on how to deal with symptoms
and where to go in an emergency. It handles about 6.5m calls a year and its
website attracts 1m visits a month. This side of its business is likely to
grow, but a report to staff today admits the organisation has failed to meet
targets for expanding into new areas. It expected to get the lion's share of
contracts for call centres for patients wanting to see a GP outside working
hours - but got only 20% of the business. It also runs an appointments line
to support the choose and book system that enables patients to fix an
outpatient appointment at a convenient time at the hospital of their choice.
Delays in installing necessary IT equipment in hospitals and GP surgeries
slowed this income stream. It says it can no longer afford to run many of
the smaller call centres. The proposals call for the closure of centres in
Doncaster,
Scunthorpe, York,
Chester,
Bolton,
Preston, Chorley,
Southport,
Cambridge,
Croydon,
Brighton and
Kensington, London. They will shut over the next 18 months and staff
will be made redundant unless they can be redeployed. Eighteen call centres
will be expanded.John Carvel, social affairs editor
Tuesday May 16, 2006 The Guardian |
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Nurses face
pay cuts in NHS plan. Around 200 nurses at
Barnsley
Hospital could see their pay cut if a proposed regrading of posts goes
ahead.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
BBC
Online 17 May 2006 |
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Nurses could be
downgraded with pay cuts.
Barnsley
Hospital is to drop the grade of
around 200 nurses as part of a review of staffing needs. The move would see
the nurses moving from grade 6 to 5 in an effort to
save funds and bring more nurses into 'hands on' patient care. The
Hospital is also considering 15 job losses although it intends to avoid
compulsory redundancies.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Yorkshire Post 18 May 2006 |
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PCTs rush to
bring in private providers to run GP services. One in three PCTs will
strike a deal with a private company to run GP services by the end of this
year, according to a major Pulse survey. The survey of 104 trusts shows the
rush towards privately run NHS GP surgeries is surging ahead at a far faster
pace than expected. Ten PCTs said they had already signed alternative
provider medical services contracts, 10 had contracts out to tender and 12
planned to tender before the end of 2006. Far from being restricted to the
deprived under-doctored areas envisaged by ministers, APMS contracts are
already spreading into leafy affluent shires. Just four of the 32 trusts
forging ahead with APMS were among the 36 under-doctored areas ordered by
ministers to bring in private providers. Trusts with contracts already
sealed ranged from deprived areas like
Barnsley,
and
Wednesbury and West Bromwich to leafy shires including
Herefordshire, and
East
Elmbridge and Mid Surrey. GPs accused PCTs of rushing into APMS schemes
in a bid to gain political "brownie points". The issue is set to be a
flashpoint at next week's LMCs conference, with delegates voting on a demand
to restrict APMS to areas where there is "an identified need" and existing
GPs cannot deliver the service. Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the GPC
commissioning and service subcommittee, said PCTs must not be allowed to
stray beyond the original remit for APMS - adding GP capacity in
under-doctored areas. Dr Peter Jolliffe, Devon LMC chair, said there was no
justification for
South Hams and West Devon PCT's plan to use APMS to establish a practice
in a new town: "We don't have any problems attracting doctors here."
Professor Allyson Pollock, head of health policy at University College
London, urged the Department of Health to stick to its commitment to pilot
APMS in six PCTs before rolling it out nationally.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Pulse 9 June 2006 |
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Key NHS reform
plans put on ice. The expansion of a key NHS reform has been put on ice
after specialist services started to suffer.
Payment by Results has caused
cash problems in specialist children's hospitals due to the complex nature
of their work. Ministers said they would get extra money to plug the
shortfall and said there was now no timetable to
extend it into other services not covered. It was originally envisaged that
adult critical care would be incorporated this year. Mental health and other
community services were also due to be covered by the funding system by
2008. But Lord Warner said the system would not be expanded at all next
year. And he added: "We will not be specific about what comes after that."
His announcement comes after the government was criticised for the way the
tariff for this year was introduced. A government-commissioned report by
John Lawlor, chief executive of the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation
Trust, on the handling of the announcement said in the future ministers must
publish it earlier, employ more staff to calculate it and even consider
contracting out the process. He also agreed it should not be rolled out
further in 2007-8 to give the system chance to "bed down". It comes after
children's hospitals started to lobby government, warning services may have
to be but because they were not receiving enough money under Payment by
Results. The Department of Health has agreed to give the
Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital £4.9m this year,
London's Great
Ormond Street Hospital £3.4m and
Sheffield's children hospital £900,000. The payments are likely to be
repeated next year, Lord Warner said. The NHS system of Payment by Results
has attracted controversy because it goes much further than its
continental
equivalents which tend to only cover elective operations. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC Online 18
July 2006 |
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DoH admits PbR
hits care and is costly. The Department of Health has admitted that its
payment by results hospital
funding scheme has led to a deterioration in care for older people, has 'not
worked' for specialist children's hospitals and involves currently unfunded
administration costs. the DoH national director for older people, Professor
Ian Philp, said it was 'essential' the PbR tariff was reformed. At present,
it acts as a 'perverse incentive' for hospitals to discharge patients early
to make savings on rehabilitation times, he said. 'There is anecdotal
evidence that some rehabilitation services are being scaled back. Certainly,
acute hospital provision of rehabilitation services have been. There has
been some disinvestment.' The latest DoH statistics reveal that emergency
readmission rates have increased by almost a third, from 5.5% of all
admissions in April 2003 to 7.1% of all admissions in April 2006. Philp
admitted that part of that increase could be due to hospitals attempting to
discharge elderly patients too early. Under the current PbR tariff,
hospitals receive a lump sum for each procedure which includes funding for
both classic 'acute' services, such as operations, and post-operative
rehabilitation. Philp said that the DoH was now exploring ways to 'unbundle'
the tariffs, so as to ensure that hospitals could 'concentrate on what they
are good at - acute care' - and be reimbursed fairly for that work. A
proportion of the tariff price would be separated and made available for
community services to provide rehabilitative services through care homes and
domiciliary care. New 'unbundled' tariffs for four types of common procedure
- including elective hip replacements - will be in place from April 2007,
said Philp, and would be a 'key driver' in achieving the 5% shift of the
hospital budget (£2.4bn) to social care. Philp's comments came as health
minister Lord Warner admitted that the tariff had also created problems for
children's hospitals, whose specialisms were not fully covered. Three
hospitals in
Liverpool,
London and
Sheffield would now receive a supplementary £9m between them this year
and next, he said. Warner also said he now accepted that PbR meant extra
administration costs for hospitals and primary care trusts. This followed
the DoH's publication of an independent study, which found additional costs
of between £100,000 and £180,000 for an individual hospital and £90,000 and
£190,000 for a PCT. That could add up to between £55.1m and £107.7m in new
administration costs per year across England's 279 hospital trusts and 303
old-size PCTs. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Public
Finance 21 July 2006 |
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Health
services face £35m cuts.
Sheffield health bosses are to make £35 million of cuts over the next
two years - but still insist patient care will improve. The city's four
Primary Care Trusts are facing a major cash shortage to pay off debts and
meet government targets.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Sheffield
Telegraph
27 July 2006 |
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Kids' hospital
ward set to close. A ward at
Sheffield Children's Hospital could be closed to help bosses make £3
million efficiency savings. The S2 ward helps children with dental, ear,
nose and throat problems and those in need of plastic surgery. Union
representatives said staff fear for their jobs and the future of services at
the hospital if the proposal goes ahead. Managers came up with the plan
after the hospital was told to make £3 million of annual efficiency savings
over the next three years to meet government targets for NHS organisations. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Sheffield
Telegraph 10 August 2006 |
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One in five ambulance trusts systematically misreported response times,
making it look as if they reached serious life-threatening emergencies
within government
targets,
the Department of Health disclosed yesterday. An audit of 31 ambulance
services in England found six did not follow official guidance about how
response times should be recorded. Some did not start the clock as soon as a
999 call was received. Others did not synchronise the clocks on the
emergency switchboard with those used by paramedics. In some cases,
ambulance trusts recategorised the urgency of the call after the job was
done to make it fit the response time achieved rather than the priority
given when the original call was made. This would have allowed staff to
downgrade an emergency if the ambulance arrived late. The department said
the six trusts were
West
Yorkshire,
South
Yorkshire,
Cumbria,
West Midlands,
Staffordshire and the
West Country ambulance service. John Carvel, social affairs editor
Tuesday August 15, 2006 The Guardian |
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Hospital ward
axe could kill sick son. The parents of a six month old baby with a
life-threatening condition are calling for a specialist ward at
Sheffield Children's Hospital under threat of closure to remain open.
Vicky Lee and Jamie Kersopp fear their son Jack's care will suffer if the S2
ward shuts as he may no longer be looked after by the specialist and
experienced team that know him well. Managers announced earlier this week
they could close the ward, which looks after patients with ear, nose and
throat problems and those who need plastic surgery and require dental
treatment. If S2 ward closes the hospital would save £450,000.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Sheffield
Telegraph 17 August 2006 |
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NHS delivers
fresh blow to sickly iSoft. Troubled software company iSoft has suffered
another blow after an NHS trust abandoned the
implementation of its patient management system, part of the national
programme to digitise patient health records, after several delays. The
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it took the
decision because a number of requirements had not been met before the system
was due to go live in June this year. The trust is now seeking an
"alternative solution" but said it was still committed to the national
programme. This is the latest in a series of problems for iSoft, which had
to restate its accounts earlier this year and is undergoing an investigation
into possible accounting irregularities. iSoft shares, which have tumbled
90pc since the start of the year, rose ½ to 49p.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Telegraph
18 August 2006 |
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Monitor in target
warning. The independent foundation trust regulator has warned that progress
towards the 18-week
target
could be slowed down by primary care trusts attempting to cut spending. summary
of findings from foundation trusts' annual plans warns that foundation trust
financial and operational planning will become 'increasingly uncertain' and that
'the progress towards 18-week waiting targets may be slowed'. 'Operational and
financial planning is complicated as foundation trusts balance waiting list
targets with commissioners' desire to minimise activity,' it says. The regulator
also says the 'priority to achieve financial balance is leading some
commissioners to demonstrate behaviour which conflicts with payment by results
reform'. Seven foundation trusts have forecast a deficit for the end of the
current financial year. University College
London Hospitals is
predicting the biggest deficit - £10m by year-end. Countess of
Chester Hospital,
Gloucestershire Hospitals,
Barnsley
Hospital, Doncaster and
Bassetlaw Hospitals, City Hospitals
Sunderland, and Homerton University Hospital foundation trusts are
forecasting deficits ranging from £1m-£3m.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health
Service Journal 31 August 2006 |
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Calls for strike
in hospital row. An acrimonious dispute over staff car parking and
charges for childcare at
Sheffield's Northern General Hospital is threatening to escalate into
strike action. Unions are holding a rally today outside the hospital to draw
public attention to the situation, which has left some nursing staff and
other workers without anywhere to leave their cars at work - in effect
wiping out the benefits of this year's pay award. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Yorkshire
Post 1 September 2006 |
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Hospital workers
in ward closure protest. NHS workers gathered outside
Sheffield Children's Hospital to protest against plans to close a
specialist ward. The rally was organised after hospital managers
controversially suggested Ward S2 should shut as part of £9m efficiency
savings. Hospital managers say closing the ward, which helps children with
dental, ear, nose and throat problems and those in need of plastic surgery,
would save £450,000 and generate a further £160,000 to be invested in other
services. The Children's Hospital is having to make £3m of savings annually
for the next three years to reach Government efficiency and waiting list
targets. Union chiefs fear the loss of Ward S2 would lead to job cuts and
poor patient care.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Yorkshire
Post 10 September 2006 |
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NHS demos 'mirror
poll tax action'. An "extraordinary" level of protests against cuts in
NHS services is building up across the UK and now threatens to rival the
rebellion against the hated poll tax, the Government has been warned.
Members of the public have been turning out in their thousands in recent
weeks to demonstrate against closures or cutbacks across the country,
including Nottingham,
Cambridge,
Manchester,
Sheffield,
Birmingham and
Epsom. Marches and rallies have been held in Huntingdon,
Huddersfield and
Southampton while protests will be held later this month in areas
including
Oxford and
Guildford. Unions and other organisers of the events have expressed
amazement at the number of people joining in. Geoff Martin, head of
campaigns at pressure group Health Emergency said: "An extraordinary grass
roots movement against government policy on hospital closures and
privatisation is putting thousands of people on the streets every weekend in
villages, town and cities the length and breadth of the country. There's
been nothing like this since the spontaneous rebellion against the poll tax
in the early 90's. The Government are right to be worried. The full scale of
their closure programme, which will involve up to 60 major acute hospitals,
has yet to hit home and when it does the scale of the protest will ratchet
up several notches. This growing NHS protest could well do for New Labour
what the poll tax did for Margaret Thatcher and the Tories." Karen Jennings,
head of health at Unison said: "Local people are joining these protests in
their droves because they care about their local hospital. It shows that
people are not interested in choice or privatisation. What they want is a
good local hospital they can use they are sick. This is a mass movement of
people demonstrating that they want their hospitals to stay open."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Guardian
7 October 2006 |
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NHS rallies 'echo
poll tax anger'. A rising number of protests against cuts in the NHS is
threatening to rival the 1990s rebellion against the Tories' poll tax,
campaigners have said. The protests have attracted both health professionals
and members of the public affected by potential changes. The Keep
Worthing and Southlands Hospitals campaign will gather at the site on
Sunday afternoon. On Saturday, more than 1,000 people took part in a protest
in
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, where Hinchingbrooke Hospital is vulnerable
to closure because of a £24m debt. A
Huddersfield protest related to a decision to switch the town's
maternity services to a hospital in Halifax. In recent weeks demonstrators
have also turned out in
Southampton,
Nottingham, Cambridge,
Redditch,
Manchester,
Sheffield,
Birmingham and
Epsom. "An extraordinary grass roots movement against government policy
on hospital closures and privatisation is putting thousands of people on the
streets every weekend in villages, town and cities the length and breadth of
the country," said Geoff Martin, head of campaigns at pressure group Health
Emergency. Labour leadership contender John McDonnell MP has said the
government risked losing dozens of seats at the next general election in
areas affected by NHS cuts.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of BBC
Online 9 October 2006 |
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Operations cut
may save cash. Hundreds of operations could be postponed in
Sheffield's adult hospitals to help a cash-strapped health trust manage
its debts. Sheffield Primary Care Trust is heading for a £15.9m overspend.
Now, to save cash, health managers at the trust - which runs GP and
community health services in the city - will ask Sheffield Teaching
Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to consider postponing hundreds of routine
operations. Under the NHS funding system, Sheffield Primary Care Trust pays
city hospitals for treating patients. But by delaying some non-urgent
operations the hospitals could help the trust to better manage its finances.
Jan Sobieraj, the new chief executive at Sheffield Primary Care Trust, says
discussions are due to take place soon to see whether some operations can be
delayed. The trust will also ask if bills for hospital treatment can be made
cheaper. Other ways to help save money would be for patients to be
discharged into the care of their GP for follow-up treatment, rather than
being referred back to hospital. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Sheffield
Star 7 December 2006 |
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Outcry over £7m
mental health cuts. Health chiefs are at loggerheads over plans to slash
£7m off mental health service budgets in
Sheffield, it is claimed. Plans have been drawn up for a series of
financial cutbacks over the next two years, which could result in the number
of hospital beds for mental health patients being reduced and investment in
community services being delayed. The Liberal Democrats are accusing
Sheffield PCT, which holds the purse strings, of forcing the savings on
Sheffield Care Trust, which delivers mental health services. Proposals
include reducing the number of hospital beds for mental health patients by a
quarter, whilst at the same time delaying investment in community-based
services intended to avoid expensive treatments such as hospital admissions.
Councillor Ian Auckland, the Lib Dem's shadow cabinet member for adult
services, said: "In targeting mental health services, a vulnerable group is
being attacked through cuts imposed by the Labour Government. This
disagreement between local health bodies is a direct result of the NHS cash
crisis brought about by government reforms. These cuts, which are being
forced through, will be bad news for local service users and will have a
detrimental effect on local services." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Sheffield
Star 8 December 2006 |
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NHS facing more
pain after dental fees blunder. Cash-stricken
NHS trusts in Yorkshire face another blow amid fears a Government blunder in
calculating controversial
dental
charges will leave a multi-million black hole in budgets. found health
chiefs in the region are predicting losses of up to £11m in revenue from new
dental charges introduced in April. If the same pattern were to be repeated
nationwide it could leave the NHS facing a dental charge deficit of more
than £100m in 2006-07 - on top of an escalating crisis in health service
finances which is already leading to swingeing cuts in care. The
miscalculation would be the latest by the Department of Health over new
contract. The biggest predicted deficit is in the
Bradford
district where health chiefs estimate they will be £2.4m below target by
March.
Sheffield Primary Care Trust (PCT) could run up losses of £2m - nearly
25 per cent of total revenue. Only health chiefs in
North Yorkshire and Calderdale are confident they will recover the full
total but most are predicting they will be 10-30 per cent short. The losses
are exacerbating the NHS financial crisis. In latest estimates, NHS trusts
in Yorkshire are predicting they will plunge £129m into the red by the end
of March. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Yorkshire
Post 27 December 2006 |
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NHS title
cost £10k. Health bosses have been attacked for using £10,300 of
taxpayers' cash creating a new name. Image consultants spent a year dreaming
up a title for an NHS trust. Cynergy Healthcare eventually chose one that is
longer than the original.
Doncaster and
South Humber Healthcare NHS Trust will become Rotherham Doncaster and
South Humber NHS Foundation Trust later this year. Doncaster councillor
Martin Williams said: "It's a scandalous waste. They have replaced a daft
name with an even longer one." The Trust said: "It was to include
Rotherham."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Mirror
5 January 2007 |
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Views sought
on shake-up of mental health.
Mental health services are the latest area to face
cost-cutting in the NHS in
Sheffield, as plans for the shake-up go out to public consultation. If
the changes go ahead as planned, they are expected to save Sheffield Primary
Care Trust 5% on the cost of that type of care. Savings are being
implemented across health services in Sheffield in the drive to save money
to make the accounts balance.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Yorkshire
Post 5 January 2007 |
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Staff to take unpaid
leave in cash crisis. A cash-strapped
Sheffield
health trust is offering staff the chance to take unpaid leave - in a desperate
attempt to save money. Sheffield Primary Care Trust is heading for a £15m
overspend on its budget by March, the end of the financial year, and is taking
the unusual step as part of a package of measures to help it trim back on
spending. It also says discussions have been held with city hospitals to see if
some non-urgent operations can be postponed by a few weeks to help the trust
save money and it has already admitted redundancies have not been ruled out. The
trust, which employs 2,500 people working in community health services and
administration has written to all staff asking if they would like to take unpaid
leave. Health chiefs say services will not suffer under the move. But the plan
has been criticised by Liberal Democrat councillor, Ian Auckland, who said: "It
smacks of desperation for the PCT which is struggling to make savings imposed by
this government." Sheffield PCT has admitted it is facing a difficult period and
needs to save cash. So far seven requests have been granted - involving a few
days off and in some cases reduced hours over a limited period. The trust are
considering re-organising community services - and as part of this may re-deploy
some district nurses to work in specialist services. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Sheffield
Telegraph 5 February 2007 |
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Protests over
blood centre cuts. Hundreds of NHS workers are set to protest against
plans to close blood centres across England. Demonstrations are planned
outside many centres including those in
Leeds,
Birmingham,
Sheffield and
Southampton. Unions are campaigning to halt plans to centralise work in
three centres in London, Bristol and Manchester. The union Amicus has voted
to take industrial action but the National Blood Service denies patients
will be put at risk by the changes. Amicus official Owen Granfield said: "If
we only have three sites in the UK, it would be impossible to maintain the
right levels of blood stock and patients may go short of blood products and
services." Bill Campbell, national officer of Unison, said it was wrong to
make cuts in a "life-saving service". "Closing centres will mean precious
blood supplies will have to be transported from one end of the country to
the next. The National Blood Service should look again at these proposals
and make their decisions on what will help to save the most lives, not what
will save the most money." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of BBC
Online 14 February 2007 |
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Hospitals lead to way to Blair's 18-week goal. Hospital bosses at
Doncaster and
Chesterfield announced yesterday that they hope to hit the government's
18-week referral to treatment target up to twelve months early. The
announcement came as Tony Blair placed the target at the heart of his
legacy. Hospital bosses are considering round-the-clock surgery, sending
more patients abroad and greater use of private centres in order to bring
down waiting times. However Jonathan Fielden, deputy chairman of the British
Medical Association's consultants' committee, warned that the targets could
provide too narrow a focus, leaving out some such as those with long-term
conditions and mental health problems. He said: "The focus on surgery is
only a relatively small area of what healthcare delivers. If you just focus
on production lines and churning people through we won't look at the broader
picture and we need to do that."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Yorkshire
Post 20 February 2007 |
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NHS
staff protest over job cuts. Health workers have been holding marches and
rallies to protest about cuts to NHS jobs and services, and below-inflation pay
increases. Demonstrations took place in a number of towns and cities, including
London,
Manchester,
Preston,
Bristol,
Birmingham,
Sheffield
and Belfast. TUC general secretary Brendan
Barber - who spoke in Sheffield - said there was "real concern" about NHS
policies. Barber said there were several problems within the NHS. "Obviously
there are immediate pressures with cuts and jobs disappearing, wards closing in
too many trusts," he said. "People not able to find jobs when they've completed
their training - nurses, physiotherapists. So all of those kinds of problems.
But (there is) a feeling that the direction of policy is just not right. The
privatisation, the fragmentation of the NHS is really threatening the whole
integrity of the service. I think that's what people are saying today." Dr Peter
Carter, of the Royal College of Nursing, said nurses were "angry and upset" over
a number of issues. "Over the last year or so nurses have seen jobs frozen,
redundancies, services closed, wards closed, student nurses not being able to
get jobs on finishing their training, which is a pretty depressing state of
affairs. And then you've had the announcement by the government that they were
not going to fully implement the recommendations of the pay review body that
nurses should get 2.5%. And so it's a combination of both of these things have
led to an extremely frustrated nursing workforce." Health Minister Rosie
Winterton said unions and staff signed up to the principles of the NHS Plan,
which sets out reforms over 10 years.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of BBC
Online 3 March 2007 |
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United on the
streets in day of protests. With placards, banners and, in some cases,
daffodils, campaigners took to the streets on Saturday to protest over NHS
job cuts,
service closures,
marketisation - all were targets of the day of action which saw rallies
and marches take place across England and
Northern Ireland. The events were co-ordinated by NHS Together, an
alliance of organisations representing staff working in the health service,
along with the TUC. According to TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, who
addressed marchers in
Sheffield, the government is in danger of squandering political credit
earned through higher investment and improved services. He said ministers
should take action to deal with financial problems, should
stop imposing
constant change and should move away from the current direction which
was leading to fragmentation of the NHS. Health secretary Patricia Hewitt
came under particular fire. She might have found Crawley in West
Sussex - where she was strangled in effigy - particularly painful. Apart
from inflicting symbolic violence, campaigners used many methods to get
their message across. One intrepid group from
Cumbria braved the mist and rain to unfurl the NHS banner atop England's
third-highest peak, Skiddaw. Others employed street theatre, stilt walkers
and steel bands. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Health
Service Journal 8 March 2007 |
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Out of hours nurse told my dying partner: Take laxatives. A mother died
after an out-of-hours NHS call centre advised her to take laxatives for
crippling stomach pains, an inquest was told. Her partner, Mr Bower,
contacted his local surgery, but it was closed. An answerphone message
advised patients seeking help to contact out-of-hours advice centre and
private healthcare company, Primecare. Mr Bower tried to explain the
background of his partner's illness to a nurse who picked up the phone but
she refused to discuss it with him and instead insisted on speaking to Miss
Christian. After being told that the case was not serious enough to warrant
an on-call doctor visiting their home Miss Christian took a course of
laxatives but her condition worsened overnight. The next day, December 23,
Mr Bower called his GP who arrived at their home in
Sheffield within 15 minutes. Mr Bower said his GP immediately arranged
for her to go to hospital. Miss Christian was taken back to the Northern
General by ambulance but was declared dead from peritonitis, due to a
perforated ulcer, a short time later. Primecare, which employs 150 nurses
and claims to provide nationwide coverage to 10,000 GPs, many more
clinicians and other healthcare professionals, was unavailable for comment.
Nestor Healthcare, its parent company, refused to comment. The inquest
continues.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Mail
30 March 2007 |
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Cancer ward for women set for axe. Dedicated breast cancer ward is
set to be axed at a
Sheffield hospital - but fears women recovering from breast surgery
would have to share a ward with male patients have been allayed. Managers
are planning a reorganisation of general surgery services at the Royal
Hallamshire - involving the closure of beds and a reorganisation of wards
affecting a range of patients including women with breast cancer. Under the
proposals the G2 ward which only looks after breast cancer patients would
close - and would reopen as part of a group of wards where patients with
other conditions, such as hernias, would also be treated. But the changes
have sparked concern that women with breast cancer would have to recover
alongside male patients. One of the proposals is for breast cancer patients
to be treated in a separate area to other women patients on a female only
ward. Under the reorganisation there could be one mixed male and female ward
but this would not include breast cancer patients.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of South
Yorkshire Star 30 March 2007 |
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Health fears for
patients. Proposed changes to mental health services in
Sheffield have left patients and their families fearing staff will lose
their jobs and facilities will be axed. A public consultation organised by
Sheffield Primary Care Trust (PCT) has now ended and are they due to present
their findings in May. But mental health service users are worried that job
cuts could be among money saving recommendations. And if job cuts were to go
ahead, adult facilities such as drop-in centres could be forced to close as
a result. Mental healthcare facilities in the city are delivered by
Sheffield Care Trust (SCT) in partnership with the council. But they are
partly funded by the PCT which has admitted it needs to slash its overall
budgets by 5% - leaving service users wondering where the savings will come
from. SCT is responsible for four day service units. Patients who attend the
centres in Pitsmoor and Colbrook say rumours about job losses are rife. But
the SCT declined to comment and the PCT said it is yet to make its final
recommendations.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Sheffield
Star 2 April 2007 |
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Gross failure by two sets of NHS staff led to woman's death from
perforated ulcer. A woman suffering from a perforated duodenal ulcer
died as a result of a gross failure to provide basic medical attention by
NHS staff on two separate occasions, an inquest ruled yesterday. Alison
Christian, 36, died just before Christmas 2005 at the Northern general
hospital,
Sheffield. The inquest found that her condition was not recognised
"until she was beyond help". David Ward
Friday April 13, 2007 Guardian |
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Health staff to protest at NHS changes. Health workers and civil
servants are to take to the streets of
Sheffield to protest over the NHS. Protesters say they are appealing to
the Government to keep the NHS a public service and stop creeping
privatisation and job cuts. Hospital and community-based nurses and other
NHS employees are expected to protest against the financial squeeze on
public services. They will be joined by public service workers, also worried
about job cuts and poor pay, at the demonstration organised by the Sheffield
Trades Union Council. Rob Demaine, Unison representative for South Yorkshire
hospitals, said concerns are growing nationally about privatisation of the
NHS, with more outside companies being awarded contracts to take over
aspects of care, and existing services facing cuts. There has also been
anger over proposed pay rises. NHS staff were offered a 1.7% pay increase
which is split into two stages. Under national proposals staff would get
some of the increase in April and some in October, meaning would they get a
1.5% raise overall. Green party councillor Bernard Little said: "Our health
service is being handed to unaccountable multinational companies, while
front line basic services are being cut."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of South
Yorkshire Star 30 April 2007 |
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Nurses strike
over cost-cutting plans. Theatre nurses at
Barnsley
Hospital will go on strike in a dispute over demotions and plans to cut
night duty staff. Up to 40 theatre nurses will take part in the action after
10 months of negotiations with bosses. Members of the GMB union say changes
at the NHS foundation trust mean some staff will be downgraded but expected
to carry out the same work. They also have concerns over plans to cut
overnight surgical cover. Most GMB members voted in favour of industrial
action in a ballot. Other senior GMB nurses across the hospital are
supporting the action by sticking to a work to rule policy and refusing to
do overtime until the dispute is resolved. GMB regional officer Joan Keane
and nurse representative Martin Jackson met with hospital managers last week
but could not reach an agreement. Ms Keane said: "We were advised that the
trust needs to save £1.5m on wages and that there are too many nurses in the
higher pay bands. It must be emphasised these nurses are, in many instances,
specialist nurses. They have had their jobs evaluated and are now being told
their skills and expertise are too expensive, so the trust intends to
downgrade them." She added that services at the trust will be compromised if
the changes are implemented.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Yorkshire
Post 21 May 2007 |
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Health staff
protest over job cuts at blood centres. Health service workers will
protest over plans to close two blood processing centres in the region with
a loss of 160 jobs. Blood centres in
Leeds
and
Sheffield are among seven in the country which the NHS Blood and
Transplant Service plans to close over the next four years. About 600 jobs
are expected to be lost around the country as part of a plan to centralise
blood testing and processing at centres in
London,
Manchester and
Bristol. The NHS Blood and Transplant Service says changes are needed
because of reduced demand for blood from hospitals. But members of Unison,
Unite, the Royal College of Nursing and GMB fear the cuts will put patients'
lives in danger. The unions are uniting to stage lunchtime protests outside
the under-threat centres today and have warned they will consider balloting
for strike action unless the NHS amends its plans. Unison staff secretary
Bill Campbell said: "The lives of vulnerable patients will be put at risk if
these closures go ahead. Despite putting forward robust arguments and making
constructive counter proposals, management has not budged an inch on the
plan. Unless we see some serious proposals from management we will be left
with no alternative but to consider a ballot for strike action. The national
blood Service should look again at these proposals and make their decisions
on what will help to save the most lives - not what will save the most
money. " Unions say the cuts will leave holes in the coverage of processing
centres.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Yorkshire
Post 15 June 2007 |
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'Bigger and
better' surgery opens. A new "mega-surgery" to house NHS and local
authority services under the same roof has opened in
Doncaster. The £5m Vermuyden Centre is home to two family doctor
practices serving 15,000 patients, a pharmacy which opens 100 hours a week,
treatment and out-patient suites as well as customer service department and
a library. The development is part of a £30m investment by Doncaster Primary
Care Trust (PCT) and Doncaster Council under new partnership arrangements
with the private sector. It is one of seven new centres to be built in
Doncaster to provide residents with access to a range of health and local
authority services on the same site. Trust chief executive Jayne Brown said:
"A key driver in developing this building has been our commitment to deliver
more health services closer to where people live." The Vermuyden Centre is
the third to be developed through the Local Improvement Finance Trust. It
was built by Doncaster Community Solutions, a company jointly owned by
Doncaster Primary Care Trust and Doncaster Council from the public sector
and Community Solutions for Primary Care from private enterprise. Work will
start on four new developments at Askern, Edlington, Hatfield and Moorends
in the next few months at a combined cost of £20m.
Summary by Keep
our NHS Public of Yorkshire
Post 23 July 2007 |
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Unions back
hospital strike. Trade unions in
Sheffield are supporting workers at the Northern General Hospital who
are set to strike because they have been told they face losing £2,000-£3,000
a year after management decided to cut their allowances and bonuses. Fifteen
members of staff in the bulk stores department, who prepare disposable
equipment for the wards, have been balloted and the result will be known
later this week. The group has the support of both Unison and the Sheffield
Trades Union Council. The Trades Union Council claims staff are being
subject to "unjustifiable, cavalier, and unacceptable treatment" by
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the city's
adult hospitals including the Royal Hallamshire, Charles Clifford, Weston
Park and Jessop Wing. A spokesperson for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS
Foundation Trust said: "Over the last year a number of organisational
changes have taken place within the Trust, which has led to the
re-assessment of job roles within the bulk stores department. We have been
in discussion with union representatives since late last year and staff in
the department have been given appropriate notice that the current
performance agreement will cease at the start of the new financial year."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Sheffield
Star 31 July 2007 |
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Mental health
bodies awarded foundation status. The NHS foundation trust sector grew
further this week as regulator Monitor authorised three new foundations. The
addition of the three - all involved in mental health - means there are now 73
foundation trusts in England, 13 of which specialise in mental health and
learning disabilities. The 73 have around 750,000 members and are forecast to
have a combined income of £15.1bn this financial year. The three are:
Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust;
Leeds
Partnerships NHS Foundation Trust; and
Rotherham,
Doncaster and
South Humber Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Monitor also announced that
it had deferred Royal Liverpool Children's Trust's application and rejected the
bid submitted by St Helens and Knowsley Hospitals Trust. While it would not
reveal the reasons for its decisions, Monitor said it expected the issues at the
Royal Liverpool to be resolved within 12 months.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Public
Finance 3 August 2007 |
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Dementia beds
face axe. Managers at
Sheffield Care Trust want to close wards containing 32 beds dedicated to
dementia sufferers, cutting the city's specialist beds by half. Wards at
units in Beighton, Nether Edge and in the Longley Centre would close under
the proposals. The money saved would be used for a new £1m unit and services
in the community for those with complex behavioural problems. The move
follows government plans to treat those with Alzheimer's and other forms of
dementia at home. Dr Peter Bowie, consultant and clinical director in Old
Age Psychiatry at Sheffield Care Trust, said: "I think the consultants in
the city are reluctant to admit people to hospital because once they go to
hospital there is little chance of leaving. But we have very limited
services to provide an alternative to hospital." The plan is to develop two
rapid response teams to offer specialist care at home and avoid hospital
admissions. Dr Bowie said: "At present only 10 per cent of those with
dementia admitted to hospital return home which is disappointing because
people do progress much better at home in their own environment. The vast
majority of carers want to care for their loved ones at home for as long as
they can but at the moment they haven't always had the support to be able to
do this - the new rapid response teams will provide that help. By
introducing the seven-day a week rapid response teams we will be reaching
three times as many people with complex needs as we do at the moment…We
expect that when both teams are fully up and running by summer 2008 over 400
people will be seen in a 12 month period." He added: "We won't need as many
beds because more people will be treated in the community but we recognise
that hospital care is vital and still very much needed. The specially
redesigned dementia unit at Grenoside will provide 24 in-patient beds."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Sheffield
Star 13 September 2007 |
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Patients pull own teeth as dental contract
falters. Large numbers of people are
going without dental treatment and some even report extracting their own
teeth because they cannot find an NHS dentist in their area, a survey
reveals today. The Dentistry Watch survey of more than 5,000 people, from
the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, found
widespread unhappiness among both patients and dentists despite government
reforms to increase the availability of NHS dentistry. More than
three-quarters of those who have a private dentist consider they were forced
into it because their own dentist went private or they could not find an NHS
dentist. Just over 10% were not registered with a dentist at all. A third of
those (35%) said there were no NHS dentists nearby, 22% said they did not
know how to find one, 13% said they were on a waiting list and 30% said
there were other reasons. But 6% of the respondents said they were
self-treating, which often included pulling out their own troublesome teeth.
"Fourteen teeth have had to be removed by myself using pliers," said one
Lancashire respondent. "Have pulled teeth out before, easier than
finding a dentist," said one in
Hull. "Because I could not afford the treatment cost, I had to extract
my own tooth on one occasion," said one in
Harrow. "I took
most of my teeth out in the shed with pliers. I have one to go," said
another in
Wiltshire. Some of the respondents show considerable ingenuity. "Filled
own teeth - clove oil and Polyfilla," said one in
Essex. Another
fixed a crown with Superglue and a third used a screwdriver to scrape off
plaque. The survey was carried out by Patient and Public Involvement (PPI)
Forums around England. It was triggered by complaints received by PPIs
following a new contract for dentists in April 2006, which was supposed to
increase access and simplify the charges levied on NHS patients. Almost half
the 5,212 respondents said they did not understand the charging system and
20% of those with NHS dentists went without treatment because of the cost.
There are three treatment bands - £15.90 for a basic examination and x-rays,
£43.60 if treatment such as root canals is also carried out and £194 if
construction work such as crowns is included. In August the Department of
Health announced a drop of 50,000 in the numbers attending an NHS dentist,
to 28 million. It also said there had been a shortfall in the expected
revenue of £159m as a result. Most (84%) of the 750 dentists surveyed said
the contract had not made it easier for patients to get NHS treatment and
45% said their practice was not taking new NHS patients. A majority (68%)
had either reduced or kept the same number of NHS patients as the year
before. Fixed charging bands meant dentists were better off if they treated
people who needed less work, they said. "If one orange costs 10p, then 10
oranges cost £1. BUT if one filling costs £43.60, ten fillings cost £43.69.
RUBBISH," wrote one dentist in
Sheffield. "There is no incentive in the contract to take on new
patients who often have high needs. I feel the contract discriminates
against people who probably need me most," wrote another. Norman Lamb,
Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "Eight years after Labour promised
that everyone would have access to an NHS dentist, this survey shows the
system is at breaking point." Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday
October 15, 2007 Guardian
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Fly on the wall interviews: Local authority and primary care trust
partnerships. IDeA's National Adviser for Healthy Communities,
Liam Hughes, introduces a compelling series of case studies that explore the
relationships between councils and primary care trusts (PCTs);-
Barnsley Council and PCT 17 October 2007;
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council 17 October 2007;
London Borough of Brent 17 October 2007;
Cannock Chase Council and PCT 17 October 2007;
Croydon Council and Croydon's PCT 16 October 2007;
Gateshead Council and Gateshead PCT 16 October 2007;
Greenwich Council 17 October 2007;
Herefordshire Council 17 October 2007;
Kent Council and PCT 15 October 2007;
Knowsley: joint appointment council and PCT; 15 October 2007
Lewisham Council and PCT 15 October 2007;
Shropshire County Council 15 October 2007;
Stockton-on-Tees Council and PCT 17 October 2007;
Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council 15 October 2007. Care
& Health 18 October 2007 |
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NHS staff to
strike over payouts. Joe Brayford, the head of NHS pay negotiations, is
facing a series of strikes at the
Doncaster and
Bassetlaw hospitals of which he is finance director. Electricians and
maintenance staff are to strike every Monday this month over Mr Brayford's
refusal to offer them a £3,000-a-year retention and recruitment payments
which should be given to staff across the NHS. The electricians are being
backed by Unite, the country's largest union, whose national officer, Ken
Coyne, says the trust is breaching the national pay deal that that Mr
Brayford agreed at national talks. He said: "Trusts cannot just pick and
choose from national agreements. It is just complete nonsense to claim that
the trust does not have to pay out this money which the rest of the NHS has
agreed to pay." A trust spokesperson said yesterday: "The union has argued
that because other trusts have made these payments, Doncaster and Bassetlaw
trust should also make them. The trust takes the view that there is no
automatic entitlement to receive such payment from public funds. There was
no evidence put forward to justify payments to ensure recruitment or
retention among this staff group at this time." A recent tribunal into a
similar case in Newcastle last April ended with confirmation that the four
members of Unite involved where entitled to the premiums their trust had
tried to opt out of. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Guardian
9 November 2007 |
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Heat
Map Yorkshire and the Humber
PETITIONS
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