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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.
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Charges
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Construction projects
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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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A friend tells me (February 2002) that a successful triple bypass
operation at Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry was marred when he picked up an
MRSA infection that has not healed. Hospital procedures need to
eliminate all sources of infection. |
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Richard Taylor was the star turn of the last election a retired doctor who
stood as an independent and scored a symbolic victory over Labour. His one
goal was to save Kidderminster hospital. Eight months on, it is still destined
for partial redevelopment. So what chance do single-issue campaigns, like his,
have of bucking national policy? Andy Beckett Guardian
Saturday March 9, 2002 |
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A maternity unit run without anaesthetics or consultant obstetricians is
to be the subject of an independent investigation, following the deaths of two
babies last month. All deliveries at the Wyre Forest Birth Centre in
Kidderminster, Worcestershire, have been suspended.
Sunday September 28, 2003 The Observer
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NHS trusts which have treated record numbers of patients are facing
penalties of hundreds of thousands of pounds imposed by the private landlords of
their hospitals. Secret clauses written into contracts between the NHS and the
private consortia which build and run the hospitals stipulate that penalties
must be paid if the number of patients treated exceeds a set figure, even if
they are emergency cases. The money comes out of the hospitals' annual revenue
budget, leaving less money in the pot for developments. The Worcestershire Royal
Hospital, which has a deficit of around £15 million, was charged £200,000 this
year under its penalty clause. Jo Revill, health editor
Sunday March 28, 2004 The Observer |
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If the threats to shut down Kidderminster hospital's accident and
emergency department lost Labour its seat in the town in the 2001 election,
what is the government's new competitive health market going to do in the 2009
election with hospital departments and wards being closed up and down the
country? Few people are aware about what is going to happen to the NHS.
Labour's plan is far more radical than the internal market that the
Conservatives introduced in 1991. While there are more structures in place to
protect standards - inspection, clear clinical guidelines and competition
based on capacity not price - there is no current plan for a safety net like
the one the Tories used to prevent closures and protect the party from
political flak. Leader
Monday
June 20, 2005 The Guardian
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It would be
devastating if ward moved. There are fears that the children's ward at the
George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton could be moved to Walsgrave Hospital in
Coventry in a review of services. The hospital says it has no plans to move
the ward, but staff have expressed fears that this will be the outcome of the
review.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 25 January 2006 |
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'Use us' plea
by hospital. Kidderminster's new treatment centre is running at half its
capacity because people think the hospital has been closed down.
Worcestershire Acute NHS Health Trust and Health Concern want more people to
use the facility to help clear the trust's £20m deficit.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
West Midlands Express & Star 25 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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Protesters
fight on to save hospital. After the people of Redditch voted by a 99%
majority against closing the A& E at
Redditch's Alexandra Hospital, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust this
week agreed to a do U-turn and retain the department. However there are still
proposals to close maternity, children's and gynaecology wards, and
campaigners have vowed to fight on. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Mail 3 February 2006 |
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£1m health bill
dispute. Payment by results has brought Walsgrave Hospital and Coventry
PCT into conflict. The PCT claims the hospital taken advantage of the new
system to overcharge for treatment, while the hospital believes the PCT is
trying to claw back £1m of its debt by disputing payments it had originally
agreed to. The matter will now have to be decided by
West Midlands South SHA. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 3
February 2006 |
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Anger as
hospitals increase parking charges. Parking charges have been increased by
more than 30% at Warwick and Stratford Hospitals. The charge for a week-long
parking pass will more than double from £7 to £15. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening
Telegraph 13 February 2006 |
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Parking fees
outrage. Coventry's Walsgrave Hospital has increased its parking fees.
Parking charges are also being introduced at Rugby's St Cross hospital for the
first time. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening
Telegraph 13 February 2006 |
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It amounts to a
pay cut for workers. Amicus and Unison leaders have hit out at the
revelation that Walsgrave Hospital may charge staff up to £300 a year to park. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening
Telegraph 13 February 2006 |
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PCT fury over
lost millions as PbR compensation withdrawn. Primary care trusts are
furious after learning that compensation for those that will see costs rise
under payment by results is to be halved next year, before abolition in 2008.
The change in policy, announced just two months before the new financial year,
will leave black holes in their finances. Coventry PCT will be hit hardest
with a £16.2m funding gap, and Huntingdonshire will be left with a £14.9m
shortfall. PCTs in West Midlands South strategic health authority area will
face a £53.1m gap, PCTs across Essex SHA will have to deal with a cut of £48m,
and the four Birmingham PCTs are set to lose £20m. Norfolk, Suffok and
Cambridgeshire SHA said its PCTs face a loss of £39m. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 16 February 2006 |
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We don't want to
work in Derbyshire. Workers at the medical records department at hospitals
in Coventry and Rugby face losing their jobs unless they travel to Derbyshire to
work, after University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust decided to
outsource their work to private firm TNT. Many of the 70 staff are part-time and
the commute would not make economic sense. Hospitals workers have now started a
petition - which already has 400 signatures - which calls on hospital bosses to
reverse the decision. Summary by Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 20 February 2006 |
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Hospital plan
sees new fight. Campaigners fighting proposals which could see the loss of
hospital services in north Worcestershire fear moves to merge PCTs will leave
them without a voice. Objectors from Wyre Forest and members of the Save the
Alex Action Group in Redditch are planning to stage a protest march on
Saturday 25 February. It will start from the Market Hall area of Bromsgrove
town centre at 11am. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust is trying to cut
spending by £20m and is looking at various options to downgrade the Alexandra
Hospital in Redditch.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
West Midlands Express & Star 21 February 2006 |
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Protesters in
bid to save health services. Bromsgrove residents are being urged to
protest march in the town centre on Saturday (25 Feb) in a bid to save
hospital services threatened with the axe. Worcestershire Mental Health
Partnership NHS Trust revealed beds could go at county psychiatric wards,
threatening the future of Brook Haven Mental Health Unit in Bromsgrove. The
march will start outside Woolworths at 11am. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals
NHS Trust chiefs dramatically U-turned on proposals to get rid of A&
E services at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, but other proposals
to reduce maternity, paediatrics and gynaecology services could still go
ahead.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Mail 24 February 2006 |
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Parent group
hits at baby scan price hike. Cash-strapped George Eliot Hospital in
Nuneaton has increased the charge for print outs of baby scans from £3.50 for
two images to £5 for just one picture. The hike is part of measures being
pushed through in response to the hospital's financial position.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph March 2006 |
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A lack of local knowledge involved in
changes to health service provision could put Rugby patients' lives at risk, it
has been claimed. The Coventry and Warwickshire Ambulance Trust is at the
centre of proposals that could see the merger of four Ambulance trusts across
the West Midlands. Supporters say the new proposals will leave more money
for front-line services and improve efficiency. However the Patient and
Public Involvement (PPI) Forum for the Coventry and Warwickshire Ambulance
Service say that operators in the new Trust may lack crucial local
knowledge - leading to lost time and possibly lost lives. Rugby Advertiser 16
March 2006 |
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Community Hospital at risk in West Midlands South
SHA according to
Public Finance 17 March 2006:
Evesham Community Hospital |
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Thousands more
jobs may go as crisis hits NHS Direct. Hundreds of jobs could be lost at
NHS Direct, the telephone and online service, as it becomes the latest arm
of the health service to report a deficit. Cost-cutting proposals include an
immediate recruitment freeze, compulsory redundancies and the closure of
some call centres. Meanwhile the RCN has warned that there could be 5,000
more job losses in the West Midlands alone, on top of the 1,000 jobs cut by
the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, because of "huge problems"
at hospitals such as Good Hope and City Hospital in Birmingham, New Cross in
Wolverhampton, and Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Telegraph 18 March 2006 |
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Row over hospital
waiting times claim. A hospital manager has accused health bosses of
falsely telling patients there are long waiting times at an NHS hospital to
influence them to choose to have treatment at an
ISTC. In 2004
Worcestershire's three PCTs signed a £26m contract with a Canadian firm -
tying them into a deal which would see 9,000 hip, bone and knee operations
performed privately at the Kidderminster Independent Treatment Centre.
Health watchdogs expressed concern, saying the PCTs could find it difficult
to refer enough patients to the company, in which case they would incur huge
fines. Now, Jo Harper, general manager in surgical specialities at the
Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, claims chiefs at Redditch and Bromsgrove PCT
are telling patients they will have to wait six months for surgery at the
Alex, so instead should be treated at Kidderminster. She says that the wait
at the Alex is actually four months, and that it was particularly concerning
as health chiefs were proposing to axe a host of services at the Alex in a
bid to save £20m. The PCT denies lying.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Mail 4 April 2006 |
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Bowel screening
launch curtailed. The Government's own cancer screening tsar has
contradicted ministers' insistence that the national bowel cancer screening
programme will go ahead this month 'as planned'. Julietta Patnick, director of
NHS Cancer Screening Programmes, said: "I don't know how much money I've got,
I don't know how many screening centres I can open, and we haven't bought the
kits yet." The programme would probably go ahead in some form, she said. But
the situation was on "an amber light". In a response to a Parliamentary
question about the issue, health minister Rosie Winterton could only identify
one area where the programme was going ahead - the existing pilot site in
Rugby, which has been operating for six years.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
DoctorUpdate 5 April 2006 |
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The mood of crisis in the NHS deepened yesterday with the announcement
of 720 further job losses at a hospital trust in the Midlands and the
resignation of a trust chief executive in the north-west, with a £475,000
payoff.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust said it would have to shed 720
jobs over the next 12 months to balance the books after accumulating
deficits worth £31.5m over several years. The staff affected will include
nurses, doctors and administrative workers at hospitals in Worcester,
Redditch and Kidderminster, where Labour lost a safe parliamentary seat in
2001 due to local protest at the downgrading of NHS facilities. The job
losses bring the total announced by trusts in England over the past five
weeks to more than 6,000. The toll this week included 160
jobs at
Medway trust in Kent, 400 at
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare trust and up to 300 at Royal United
hospitals in
Bath. Meanwhile Pennine Acute, the largest NHS trust in the north-west
of England, with hospitals in
Bury,
north Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale, announced the early retirement of
its chief executive, Chris Appleby, who was under pressure to go after a
vote of no confidence from the trust's doctors last summer. An independent
inquiry into the trust by Sir George Alberti, former president of the Royal
College of Physicians, found a "lethal mixture" of suspect leadership styles
and poor relations between doctors and managers.
Other NHS developments included a report from the Audit Commission
warning of serious concerns about the financial position of
George Eliot hospital trust in
Nuneaton. It had "deteriorated to such an extent that it cannot be
managed simply through local measures", said the auditors,
PricewaterhouseCoopers. And in
Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, NHS managers said a new multimillion-pound
mental health ward may never be opened because there was not the money
to run it. John Carvel and Les Reid
Friday April 7, 2006 The Guardian |
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Another 720
ward jobs go as trust blames targets. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS
Trust is to lose 720 jobs - 15% of the workforce. Edna Hall, a Unison
spokesman, said: "We are horrified. We were expecting some cuts, but 720 is
a lot to be taken out of the system and I don't see how they can say it
won't affect patient care." She said they were seeing the "full implication"
of building the £95 million Worcestershire Royal Hospital, opened in 2002,
using the private finance initiative. Michael O'Riordan, the trust chairman,
said: "Even allowing for an extra £10 million income which we expect to come
in this year, we have a funding gap of around £30 million. With an annual
turnover of £250 million, that is not a gap that we can close without
considerable pain and the most severe measures."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Telegraph 7 April 2006 |
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Town with £6m to
spare says: let's build a hospital. A district council has become the
first local authority in Britain to build its own hospital, in an experiment
which is turning the Private Finance Initiative on its head. Wychavon
District Council, in east
Worcestershire, is spending £6.7m to build a 26-bed hospital in Pershore.
The council is due to finish the project in September, then lease it to
South Worcestershire PCT, which is in financial difficulties and making cuts
elsewhere in the region. The trust plans to close the 19-bed cottage
hospital. Initially it will be unlikely to run the new hospital at full
capacity, as it has the staff to run only 19 beds. The council will receive
a higher rate of return - 7% - than the bonds in which it had previously
invested its surplus money.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Times
10 April 2006 |
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PATIENTS in Rugby have been told to wait for vital treatment in order to
save funds, it has been claimed.
Coventry and Rugby Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) sent a joint letter to the
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust in January
asking them to delay setting dates for patient operations. The PCTs claim
that asking for the delay would help save funds which could be used for
other services. However, the Trust, which oversees the Hospital of St. Cross
in Rugby, rejected the 'unacceptable' request out of hand. Bryan Stoten,
Chairman of the Trust, said: "We discussed it and said at the end of the
day, patients come first. It's not an uncommon practice, I'm afraid, as a
lot of trusts find themselves in financial difficulties and see a way out of
it by not treating patients. We said we will treat patients when we have to
- they come first."
Rugby Advertiser 13 April 2006. |
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Anger at
hospital jobs axe. Councillor Malcolm Meikle, who chairs Wychavon
District Council's health scrutiny team, has lashed out at the plan to cut
720 staff at
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. He said: "Our main concern is
that this catastrophic announcement has been made without any consultation
with staff and the communities both of which will be greatly affected by
these moves. We intend to do all we can to voice our distress at what has
happened and act on behalf of our residents. We want health bosses to
recognise what irreversible damage they are doing."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Mail 20 April 2006 |
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Council
action on NHS cuts.
Worcestershire Council has set up a special task force by unanimous vote
to fight the 720 NHS job cuts planned across the county because of fears
over the "devastating" impact on patients.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of West
Midlands Express & Star 21 April 2006 |
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Hospital sends
admin to India. Medical secretarial work at
Nuneaton's cash-strapped
George Eliot Hospital is being sent to India's cheaper labour market to be
processed. Worried secretarial staff in Nuneaton fear their jobs are now on
the line. One said: "We were called in by our manager to be told that, with
effect from May 1 all typing work in ophthalmology, obstetrics and gynaecology
will be sent to India, initially for a three-month trial. This is aimed at
saving money, but we know that it will be extended beyond a trial and lead to
redundancies."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 24 April 2006 |
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Whatever happened to ...
Kidderminster hospital? Iain Hollingshead
Saturday April 29, 2006 The Guardian |
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Jobs to go in
bid for massive budget savings.
Coventry Teaching PCT has spelled out how it aims to save a massive £29
million over the next year - and job losses are on the cards. The PCT says
it is under "significant pressures" to slash its patient care budget of
£381million by 7.5%. It says it has to slash its budget to address several
issues, including payment by results, which will cost it an extra £9million
this year.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 4 May 2006 |
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If this is
Patients' Choice then may
heaven help us all! "Crisis: What NHS crisis?" Daily Mail
headline - Monday April 24. The above headline has compelled me to
write to you. I have had several hospital appointments over the last
few months and been told I now have Patients' Choice to choose when I
attend and at which hospital. The reality of all this is that in order
to make an appointment , my doctor handed me a print out of my
"instructions". I was to wait for at least four to six weeks to see if
I was contacted. If not, I was to phone the number indicated.
This was just to check that I was in the system. Fortunately, someone
did telephone me before the time was up but only to tell me "they" would be
expecting me to telephone "them" within the next couple of days and I was
given a reference number to quote. I was strongly urged to telephone
within this time period as my call would be expected. I did this
immediately and couldn't believe how long it took her to make one
appointment. I wasn't "given the choice" of appointment, but given a
date and asked if this would be convenient. As it happened, it wasn't,
so after another lengthy wait, another date was offered which I accepted.
I had already been informed that I had the choice of four hospitals, St
Cross, Walsgrave,
Coventry and Warwick and quite frankly I cannot remember the name of the
other one. However I was told that my appointment would be at the
Hospital of St Cross. As this was convenient, I duly accepted.
More recently I have received a communication asking me to attend Coventry
and Warwick for a kidney CT scan, at 10.15am. I duly telephoned the
appointments clerk and said that as I didn't drive, I would have difficulty
in getting there for that particular time and could they arrange transport?
She said that it was up to my GP to do this. My GP said that unless I
was disabled, I would have to make my own way there. I explained I
didn't drive but he said there was a bus service. I telephoned
Stagecoach who said they do not have a bus that goes directly to the
Coventry and Warwick, only Walsgrave. However, if I made my way to
Coventry the bus would stop very near to Pool Meadow and it was only a ten
minute walk to the hospital. I had previously been told by the clerk
at the hospital that if I could get to Pool Meadow, the hospital was only a
five minute walk! So far, it has become a ten minute walk! So I
am now in the position of not choosing my appointment time/date or the
hospital, because obviously St Cross does not have a CT scanning machine.
I have no transport but because I'm not disabled, I must make my own way
there. I'm prepared to go by bus but there isn't a direct service
(Ministers please note, you keep telling us to use public transport and this
is precisely why we don't!) As I have just got divorced, am in the
middle of moving house and although not obviously disabled, I am 63 years of
age, suffering from arthritis, I felt that the whole procedure was just too
much, so I have cancelled the appointment for the time being and been told
that I will be put back on the waiting list. I am at present on
pension credit but once my flat is sold I will have money from my divorce
settlement and will be able to afford to pay for a taxi to take me to the
hospital. If this is Patients' Choice and if is the Health Service at
its best, so help us all! Mrs Wendy Law, Ash
Court, Bilton, Rugby. Letter in Rugby Advertiser 4 May 2006. [West Midlands South Strategic Health Authority] |
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Medical resources wasted by the millions of patients who fail to turn up
for hospital appointments cost the NHS in England £614m last year, according
to figures provided by trusts under the Freedom of Information Act. John
Carvel, social affairs editor
Tuesday May 9, 2006 The Guardian [Note: the situation might be improved
if patients did not get appointments at times and places they cannot reach.
See 4 May 2006 on
University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire Trust Performance for a
letter about this problem. Other patients have much worse problems with
no convenient bus service] [West Midlands South Strategic Health Authority] |
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Local protests
bring in votes. Local opposition to NHS reorganisations provided the
catalyst for single-issue party candidates standing in last week's local
elections. GP Dr Jacqueline Gunsell was elected to
Kirklees
council on the Save Huddersfield Health Campaign ticket. She was one of
three candidates standing in protest at plans to move services from their
local hospital in Halifax. She won with 2,176 votes, a majority of 700 over
the second placed Liberal Democrats. The Save Chase Farm Hospital Party won
two seats on Conservative-controlled
Enfield council.
It fielded nine candidates who are opposed to proposals to close the
hospital's accident emergency service as part of a wider reconfiguration. A
total of 12,456 people voted for the party whose policy is opposition to the
closure of A& E and to any changes
to existing women and children's services. The Independent Kidderminster
Hospital and Health Concern Group gained one new seat on
Wyre Forest council and is now the second largest party after the
Conservatives.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 11 May 2006 |
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The government's
decision about the merger of primary care trusts announced on Tuesday
attracted little interest. However, the two major concerns - size and
coterminosity with county social services - that we were told made it
impossible to retain the three highly regarded and passionately supported
PCTs in
Worcestershire, have been swept aside elsewhere in 10 instances to
retain small PCTs serving populations of 150,000 or less. Eight of these are
in Labour-held constituencies, the two with the lowest populations, 90,000
and 99,000, are
Hartlepool and Darlington. Are there genuine reasons for retention
specific to these small PCTs or is this an example of inappropriate
political influence that contributes to the low esteem in which the
political process and the government are held? Richard Taylor MP
Independent, Wyre Forest. Letter Guardian 19 May 2006 |
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Blair's market
madness wrecking the NHS. The Socialist says: "The deprived areas of
Langwith, Creswell and Normanton in
Derby are guinea
pigs in Labour's plan to privatise primary health care… [UnitedHealth
Europe] has little interest in Langwith and probably won't make much money
there. For them the big prize is a head start in bidding for control of the
budgets that pay for hospital treatments… 130 angry people were at the Keep
Our NHS Public meeting in Langwith where speaker John Lister welcomed health
campaigner and Socialist Party member Jackie Grunsell's victory in the
Huddersfield
council election. Along with victories for health campaigners in
Kidderminster, he said: 'When people get a choice they're voting
strongly for candidates that support the NHS.' In a passionate defence of
the NHS founding principles, that treatment should be available to all no
matter where they lived or how much money they had, local GP Dr. Elizabeth
Barrett, said, 'To dismember the NHS limb by limb is an act of social
vandalism.'"
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Socialist 18 May 2006 |
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Nurses back
"good guy" who quit over deficits. The Royal College of Nursing has come
out in support of Janet Monkman who recently stepped down as chief executive
of South
Warwickshire General Hospitals NHS Trust. Monkman is thought to have
quit rather than face the prospect of cutting jobs in order to balance the
books.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
Birmingham Post 18 May 2006 |
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Public
consulted on £13m NHS cuts. South
Worcestershire PCT is running a consultation to help identify where they
can save £13m. The Trust is discussing its initial plans, which include
reducing sexual health clinics and rationalising health visiting for older
people, with patients and users' groups ahead of presenting them to
Worcestershire County Council.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of
BBC Online 24 May 2006 |
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NHS probe
finds there could be more job losses. A £60m black-hole in
Worcestershire's NHS is threatening to harm care for the most vulnerable
people and derail government health reforms. The county's PCT are seeking to
make £25m savings this year. More cuts in jobs and services across the
health service could result. South Worcestershire PCT has already frozen 80
job posts and has confirmed more will follow. Worcestershire Acute Hospitals
NHS Trust is to make 720 job losses to save £16m in staff wages. The trust
admits some compulsory redundancies will be inevitable. Worcestershire's
PCTs have suspended paying the hospitals under Payment by Results for
outpatients, preferring to stick with the old system of allocating a block
upfront payment to hospitals for 2006/
07. It enables the PCTS to pay for a quota of fewer outpatients. The
hospitals trust has also confirmed it has been set "ambitious targets" for
reducing emergency patients. Part of the hospitals' multi-million debts in
Worcestershire and Warwickshire have resulted from treating more patients
than the PCTs allocated funding for - partly to meet government-imposed
targets. Building the PFI hospital at Worcestershire Royal, and leasing it
off the private consortium which owns it - also added millions to the debt.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Bromsgrove Standard 25 May 2006 |
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Surgeon supporters lobbying trust. Campaigners for the reinstatement
of a heart surgeon are to demonstrate at the hospital from where he has been
suspended for four years. Raj Mattu was suspended on full pay from Walsgrave
Hospital in Coventry in 2002 amid allegations of bullying. A panel ruling
that he get a written warning, has not resolved the issue. The hospital says
by law it must hold another hearing, which cannot go ahead until High Court
action by Dr Mattu is concluded. The protest is on Wednesday. Dr Mattu had
complained over the practise of putting five patients into bays designed for
four beds.
BBC 31 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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Wards to close in
£12m NHS cuts. Two
Worcestershire hospital wards are to close as part of a plan to tackle a
£12.8m debt run up by an NHS trust. South
Worcestershire PCT has announced that plans to
shut Pershore Hospital before a new one opens have been put on hold, but
Evesham Community Hospital will lose Bredon Ward and the Macmillan Unit.
Savings are to be made by only opening 10 beds this financial year in the
new hospital replacing Pershore. Cuts in school nurses, sexual health
clinics and out-of-hours GP surgeries are still subject to consultation. The
PCT has also asked the Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership Trust to
make significant savings and plans to postpone the development of new
services both in and out of hospitals. Worcestershire County Council could
yet rule that formal public consultation is needed on the cuts. Summary
by Keep our NHS
Public of
BBC
Online 12 June 2006 |
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The alert over Cadbury products contaminated with
salmonella widened yesterday as it emerged other food companies bought
chocolate crumb from the
Herefordshire factory at the heart of the crisis. After a meeting with
the authorities in London yesterday, it also emerged Cadbury has only now
agreed to a comprehensive cleaning of all the production lines at the
Marlbrook plant concerned. It first discovered it had a salmonella problem
at the site in January this year, although the authorities believe that
previous outbreaks in 2002 at its other factories may be traced back to
Herefordshire. Cadbury only admitted to the contamination after an alert
from the Health Protection Agency about an unusual rise in human cases of
Salmonella montevideo. It agreed to recall more than 1m bars of seven types
of chocolate brands that had tested positive two weeks ago. Felicity
Lawrence and James Meikle
Friday
July 7, 2006 The Guardian |
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Maternity unit
"will close within weeks". The fate of
Nuneaton's maternity unit has been sealed by the removal of its three
top mid-wife posts according to staff at the unit. A radical shake-up of
services in Nuneaton, that includes downsizing its A&
E department, had left a question mark over the future of the unit at
the town's beleaguered
George Eliot Hospital. Plans to close Nuneaton's specialist baby unit,
which treats premature babies, have already been announced, with services to
be moved to Coventry; but staff now feel the maternity unit is sure to
follow suit. The hospital trust has denied the move. Opponents and
campaigners in Nuneaton plan a petition and have urged residents to attend a
public meeting at Nuneaton Town all on July 13th. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry
Evening Telegraph 4 July 2006 |
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Midlands
maternity unit to close. All maternity services at Alexandra Hospital in
Redditch are to be moved to the Royal Hospital in Worcester as part of a
shake up of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust's clinical services.
The plans also include a downgrading of the Redditch site's paediatric
services and a new woman's hospital on the trust's Aconbury East site. The
trust announced in April that it was axing 720 jobs in order to save £30m.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham
Post 7 July 2006 |
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Mother's fear
over NHS maternity cuts. An anxious mum-to-be has hit out at plans to
close maternity wards at the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, fearing it could
put lives at risk. The controversial proposals would see maternity services
moved from Redditch to
Worcestershire Royal Hospital - a 50-mile round trip. The trust revealed
last September that it was to axe services at the Alex in a bid to save £20
million after clocking up debts of £32 million, but denied that the aim of
the maternity transfer was to save money. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham
Mail 21 July 2006 |
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Health bosses
to be quizzed. People in
Coventry are being invited to watch councillors quizzing NHS bosses
about how patients will be affected by a cash squeeze.
The PCTs in Coventry and Warwickshire have had together to borrow £30m to
help pay the bills for Coventry's new superhospital. They have to foot much
of the first annual payment under the
PFI for the new University
Hospital at Walsgrave.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 21 July 2006 |
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Campaigners
protest over NHS cuts. Patients and hospital staff from
Staffordshire,
Hereford and Worcester have protested outside City Hospital in
Birmingham over cuts, including 1,000 job losses in Staffordshire and
800 at City Hospital itself. Campaigner Andy Bentley said the march was a
statement of intent. Neal Stote, from the Save the Alex Campaign which is
fighting to keep services at Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, said that
hundreds of people had turned out to have their voices heard. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 17 July 2006 |
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Specialist must pay trust's costs. A doctor who failed to win
an injunction against possible dismissal by a hospital trust must now pay up
to £60,000 in court costs. Doctor Raj Mattu was suspended in 2002 over an
allegation of harassment. He lost the injunction at the High Court on Friday
and now must pay two thirds of University Hospitals Coventry and
Warwickshire NHS Trust's costs. But a spokesman for a group supporting the
doctor said the specialist should be reinstated. The ruling follows the
trust "substantially" winning the case. The trust estimates its legal costs
in the case to be at least £90,000 leaving a bill of £60,000 for Dr Mattu.
BBC 25 July 2006 |
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A LEADING councillor has expressed concerns over plans
to treat seriously ill Rugby patients in Coventry. As the Advertiser
reported last month, out-of-hours and weekend services at
Rugby's Hospital of St. Cross may be switched to the new University
Hospital. The proposal was included in the Coventry and Warwickshire Acute
Services Review, set up to examine hospital care in Warwickshire. Speaking
at a meeting of Warwickshire County Council's Rugby Area Committee earlier
this month, County Cllr. Bryan Levy (Lab, Lawford and New Bilton) said: "We
have to explain to the electorate why they are being made to go to Coventry.
"We have been inundated with worries about car parking and buses.
Rugby Advertiser
27 July 2006 |
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Hospital
trust sacks team of chaplains. Terminally-ill patients and bereaved
relatives will be left without pastoral care if a struggling NHS trust
presses ahead with plans to axe most of its chaplaincy service, the union
Amicus has said. Six of seven chaplains are to be laid off under proposals
by
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to reduce a projected £30
million deficit. The plans would leave only one chaplain serving three
hospitals. Amicus, which represents the College of Health Care Chaplains,
said it was the worst single example of cuts affecting spiritual services in
at least seven other trusts across Britain. Two Anglican chaplains, three
Roman Catholics and another from the Free Church would be sacked from the
Worcester and Kidderminster hospitals under the plan, leaving one based at
Redditch. The union said: "This is a cruel decision by the trust. We believe
that such cutbacks are being replicated across the UK. Chaplains are a soft
target." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Telegraph
9 August 2006 |
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'Teething
problems' making nurses sick. More than 20 nurses have quit their jobs
since the new University Hospital in
Coventry opened a month ago. Stressed staff say they are leaving because
of problems at the £400 million PFI
hospital at Walsgrave. They claim there is a shortage of staff, morale
is low, the building is too hot and there is nowhere for nurses to change.
One nurse, who would only give her name as Louise, said: "The morale at the
new hospital is terrible, the place is a shambles, and a lot of staff are
leaving and not always being replaced."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 10 August 2006 |
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Hospital
hugged in protest march. Protestors fighting cuts
at a
Warwickshire hospital took part in a march on Sunday. They walked
through Nuneaton to George Eliot Hospital and then linked arms around the
building in a symbolic show of support. Residents are angry about plans
which could see the special care baby unit and children's ward close. There
are plans to alter maternity and out-of-hours emergency surgery services
with patients using other hospitals.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 14 August 2006 |
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Subject: St Cross
From: dwood@fsmail.net
Date: Sun, September 3, 2006 3:08 pm
To:
sheila@healthdemocracy.org.uk
Please find
attached my concerns about the recent proposals for
St
Cross [Rugby] |
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NHS chaplain
call. The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Birmingham, has
called on
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust to reverse its proposal to make
six of its seven chaplains redundant.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Times
6 September 2006 |
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Subject:
Warwickshire Hospital Cuts - Documents From: "Keith Kondakor" <keithk@clara.co.uk>
To: <sheila@healthdemocracy.org.uk> Date: Fri, September 8, 2006 10:25 am
I have obtained some useful documents using the Freedom of Information Act.
Key is the
technical report on which the Acute Services Review is based. It states
that they can save £10.5m without spending on alternative care. It has a
long list of conditions that will be subject to admittance avoidance - many
deadly. Please read and pass on.
Keith |
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Group upset over
hospital. Pensioners held an open-air meeting to protest NHS cuts in
Hinckley town centre. The Hinckley and Bosworth Pensioners Action Group
arranged the meeting to oppose the transfer of services away from George
Eliot Hospital in
Nuneaton and the funding of new hospitals through the Private Finance
Initiative. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Leicester Mercury 19 September 2006 |
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Rain fails to
dampen hospital protest. Hundreds of campaigners braved the rain to
protest against the proposed downgrading of services at a
Worcestershire hospital. Staff, patients and politicians joined forces
to make their voices heard over plans to axe maternity, paediatric and
gynaecology services at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. The proposals,
put forward by Worcester Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, would see no more births
at Redditch and expectant mothers going to Worcester or Birmingham instead.
Emergency children's services would also be reconfigured, with in-patients
being treated at Worcester Royal Hospital while paediatricians would operate
an "eight 'til late" service at the Alexandra Hospital. More than 200
campaigners staged a rally outside the hospital ahead of the trust board's
monthly meeting. Julie Kirkbride, Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, said:
"Maternity, A& E and paediatric
services are the very backbone of our local health service, and as such
should be provided locally, rather than 40 minutes away in Worcester."
Hereford Hospital NHS Trust is losing 75 jobs in an effort to balance its
books.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Birmingham
Post 6 October 2006 |
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NHS SOS.
There has been yet another week of protest from health trade unionists and
campaigners all over the country.
Nottingham had
3,000 people on the streets opposing hospital closures and cuts while
between 5,000 and 7,000 marched in
Hastings. NHS Logistics workers held a solid strike in all five depots,
opposing the take-over by the courier company DHL on 1 October (more on page
11). Workers in other parts of the health service are warming up for
industrial action in response to compulsory redundancies and privatisation.
Over the next few weeks, protests are planned in
Oxford,
Banbury, Epsom,
Redditch and
Southampton. Some important victories are being won. The
Stroud birthing unit has been saved from closure due to a vociferous
campaign of health workers and local people. At a lobby of London's
Strategic Health Authority, London Health, on 25 September, pensioners and
health activists were told: "There will be no flexibility when dealing with
deficits and hospitals in deficit will not be baled out". In support of the
TUC lobby on 1 November, the National Pensioners Convention Greater London
region has called a feeder march. The march has the support of local
campaigns, NHS Logistics union reps, striking health workers at Whipps Cross
hospital and many others.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Socialist
9 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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NHS trust
could cut up to 90 jobs. Up to 90 jobs could be going at a
West Midlands NHS Trust.
Coventry Teaching Primary Care Trust said the redundancies would be
across a range of areas and included clinical posts as well as corporate
staff. The trust has a predicted end of year overspend of £11m. A spokesman
said it was looking at financial savings as a means of preventing the
overspend. The trust has said it will use voluntary redundancies or try to
redeploy staff but compulsory redundancies could not be ruled out. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 11 October 2006 |
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In-debt hospitals forced to pay
£1m for government consultants. Debt-ridden Midland hospitals have been
forced to pay almost £1m for consultants sent by the government to help them
with their finances. Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt ordered "turn-around
teams" into Midland hospitals after they were forced to make massive cuts in
an effort to balance their books. But it has emerged that hospitals across
Britain have been charged more than £10m by the teams themselves.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and University Hospital North
Staffordshire NHS Trust have both been charged almost £500,000. The fees
were uncovered by shadow Health Minister Stephen O'Brien who made freedom of
information requests to the hospitals affected. He said: "Patricia Hewitt's
early assurances that the turnaround costs are known and containable are
well clear of the mark." The Worcestershire Trust runs hospitals in
Worcester, Redditch and Kidderminster. It has been forced to axe most of its
chaplaincy staff after running up debts of millions of pounds. But over the
last two years it has spent £419,892 on management and financial consultants
to "turnaround" its financial position. Tory MP Peter Luff said paying for
consultants would take resources away from patient's care. In 2004 the NHS
as a whole spent £568,000 on consultants but over the last two years
hospitals have spent £10.6million. This is on top of another £11million
spent by the Department of Health centrally. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Post 12 October 2006 |
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Blair talks tough on hospital cuts. Tony Blair has warned hospital
trusts in the West Midlands
that they must live within their means and take "difficult decisions" in a
changing NHS. Hospital trusts across the region - including
Shrewsbury & Telford and
Worcestershire Acute - are planning cuts in staff and services to try to
get their books back into balance. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust
is currently carrying debts of more than £31m and is cutting nearly 300
posts at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and Princess Royal Hospital in
Telford. Blair said: "It's absolutely true that where there are deficits it
concentrates the minds of people about what's wrong in their area. It
focuses minds on changes that need to happen. These difficult decisions are
being replicated in every walk of life, but the test is 'do you get a better
service ?' Are we saying that the NHS - uniquely of any other organisation -
has to remain exactly as it is, and if you change it, you are destroying the
service ? That cannot be right, and it does not happen in any other walk of
life." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Shropshire
Star 19 October 2006 |
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How
Middle England turned into a nation of reconfiguration rebels.
A wave of protests has swept across the country over the past few months,
bringing thousands on to the streets. It has been sparked by increasing
public anger over cuts, closures and service changes in the NHS that has
erupted on a huge scale. Geoff Martin, head of campaigns at the pressure
group Health Emergency, says there has been 'nothing like it since the poll
tax'. The level of public anger seems to have taken the Department of Health
by surprise. Public anger over NHS 'cuts' has seen 10,000 marching in
Worthing, 7,000 in Haywards Heath and another 5,000 in Hastings,
Sussex. Banbury in
Oxfordshire has seen a protest by 5,000 people, with a similar number on
the streets of Surrey commuter town Epsom. The wave of anger is something
quite new in these places: none is known as a hotbed of militancy. In
Huntingdon, police put a limit of 300 on the number of demonstrators, but
1,000 turned out anyway. The protest has taken in a 3,000-strong gathering
in Nottingham, a
march of 4,000 in
Ludlow and - most remarkable of all - a demonstration of 27,000 people
in sparsely populated
Cornwall. It is not the easiest time to be an NHS manager. Elsewhere,
the protesters have taken their grievances to the
ballot box, with hospital campaigners elected to local councils in
Kirklees and the London borough of Enfield. In the wake of
Dr Taylor's 2001 election win in Kidderminster, the government
introduced measures aimed at making reconfigurations more acceptable to the
public - and less dangerous politically. The independent reconfiguration
panel was set up to advise on contested changes, and new guidance, Keeping
the NHS Local: a new direction of travel, specified that options for change
must be developed 'with people, not for them' right from the outset, 'before
minds are made up'. But somewhere along the line, the smooth new mechanisms
seem to have broken down, and the public unrest shows no sign of abating.
Lee Billingham, chair of Worthing Keep Our NHS Public, says: 'Kidderminster
at that time was a fairly isolated example. The difference now is it's a
national attack, with up to 60 accident and emergencies going.' The
situation is different for other reasons, too. This time the banners have
been raised against a background of widespread public concern at the effects
of NHS deficits. Billingham agrees that public anger over the NHS is
increasingly generalised, linking reconfiguration, financial deficits and
'broader issues: the market and privatisation'. He describes Worthing as
'Middle England'. But 10,000 people marched through the town in August to
protest at moves to downgrade its hospital, while 6,000 people linked hands
in a human chain around the buildings last month. 'As far as I know there's
never been a demonstration of that size in Worthing, ever. Nothing on that
scale.' And in Worthing at least, managers have not succeeded in persuading
the public of their arguments. A rally at the end of the August protest was
'the angriest public meeting I've ever seen', he says. 'The chief executive
of the SHA and her assistant came to address it. They were barracked and
heckled - they were visibly shaken. I don't think they were expecting how
angry people would be. They said it was OK, it was modernisation, there
would be services in the community - and people were laughing. They were in
fits of laughter.' The Kidderminster effect still haunts Labour, leading
government members to join their opposition counterparts on the NHS
protests. Chief whip Jacqui Smith, a former health minister, recently helped
deliver a 16,000-strong petition in favour of retaining maternity services
in
Redditch. In north
London's Enfield
public anger over moves to remove A& E and other services from Chase Farm
Hospital has made the political situation more complicated than ever.
Enfield councillor Kate Wilkinson is one of two Save Chase Farm candidates
elected in May, when nine health campaigners picked up 12,500 votes between
them. She says there have been attempts to close the hospital's A& E under
both Labour and Conservative governments, but the entire council has
unanimously rejected all four options for reconfiguration now under
discussion in a pre-consultation engagement phase. 'None retains a fully
functioning A& E or women's and children's services staying at our
hospital,' Wilkinson explains. 'It really is incredible. Everyone's up in
arms. We are planning another large protest in December - the anniversary of
the one last year [with 5,000 people].'
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Health Service Journal 23 November 2006 |
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Protest at plan
to cut school nurses. Head teachers in
Coventry are furious over Coventry Teaching Primary Care Trust's plans
to cut one of the city's two school nurse team leaders, one of the city's
six senior school nurses and two of the seven school nursing assistants.
They have voiced fears that the cuts, which will leave each of the remaining
five staff to do the work of one full-time and one-part time nursing
assistant, will hinder vital work in sex education lessons and identifying
children with mental health problems. Tony Flynn, head of Spon Gate Primary
School said: "I am concerned about the effect of the cutbacks. It's ironic
that we're told Coventry is going to get a supernanny when these services
are being cut." There are also plans to halve staffing from 14 to seven in
the nursery nurse team who help parents struggling to cope with behaviour
problems in pre-school children. Director of primary care for Coventry
Teaching Primary Care Trust Peter Hodder said: "We are looking at reducing
the size of the school nursing service in Coventry and it may be that some
non-essential services are affected. We would wish to focus resources at the
areas of greatest need but it is too early to speculate on the likely
impact, or state where that would be, because we are still working through
alternative proposals." Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry
Evening Telegraph 28 November 2006 |
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MP's plea on
hospital chaplains. Mid-Worcestershire MP Peter Luff has written to
health chiefs urging them not to "devastate" the county's hospital
chaplaincy service. Health chiefs meet to discuss the proposals to axe up to
six of seven chaplains serving
Redditch, Kidderminster and Worcester next week. The trust announced the
cost-saving plans in August, saying its primary duty was to provide
high-quality, effective clinical care to its patients. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Birmingham Mail 1 December 2006 |
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Mother leads NHS
campaign group. The founder of People United Saving Hospitals (PUSH),
Venessa Carey, has organised 100 local campaign groups to plan a series of
marches across England to demonstrate against cuts and the use of private money
in the NHS, with the first planned for December 15th. "We believe that we do
need to continue having local demonstrations and local groups but now we also
feel the time is here for people to come together," said Ms Carey. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC
Online 4 December 2006. [The trigger was George Eliot Hospital,
Warwickshire] |
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Reforms to improve NHS, says PM. In a speech to the NHS Confederation
Tony Blair has called on doctors and managers to sell NHS reforms to the public.
The plea comes as think-tank The Institute for Public Policy Research suggested
that campaigns to save local A& E
units could lead to more than 1,000 unnecessary deaths a year. Critics of the
reforms say they are being implemented to save money and will put patient's
lives at risk. Mr Blair told his audience that improvements were being made in
the NHS to ensure the very sick have speedy access to specialist care while also
treating people more conveniently closer to home. The IPPR researchers said
people should be campaigning for changes in services, not retention of
traditional ones and that "they need to understand that preserving the local
hospital will not always be in their best interest if something life-threatening
happens." Dr Johnathan Fielden, chairman of the British Medical Association's
consultant's committee said decisions on reconfiguration should be based on
"good evidence". However others, such as Professor Christopher Marks, cancer
surgeon and chairman of the independent campaign to save the Royal Surrey
Hospital in Guildford disagree. He accepts that some cases must go to specialist
centres but pointed out that centralisation of services in
Surrey
would see a doubling of minimum ambulance response times. "Thanks to the money
that the government has put in, particularly to A&
E, the service has improved marvellously, and it is a pity to throw the
baby out with the bath water when you have spent all this money," he said. Dr
Richard Taylor, the independent MP for Wyre Forest, who campaigned against the
closure of his local hospital in
Kidderminster, admitted that many campaigns were driven by emotion but that
downgrading left A& E departments
unable to cope. "There has got to be compromise that keeps adequate facilities
at a wider range of acute general hospitals than these super-specialist centres
alone."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of BBC Online 5
December 2006 |
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'Closures are not about saving money, but saving lives'. The
closure of accident and emergency services at some hospitals is in the
interests of patients, the Government has said. If that were true, Andrew
Lansley retorted, it could have been done before, not after, financial deficits
in the NHS had come to light. The Government fears that it is losing the
argument over NHS reconfigurations, which involve A&
E and maternity services, among others. The reports, published yesterday,
are designed to present the issue more positively, by showing that change might
not mean worse care. But the argument assumes that the money saved by closing
some A& Es is devoted to building
others into specialised centres. That is not guaranteed. Geoff Martin, of the
campaign group Health Emergency, said: "Claiming that closing local A&
E departments, trauma units and intensive-care facilities will improve
services turns all logic on its head. People are fighting these closures in
their tens of thousands up and down the country because they know that closing
local services and increasing journey times puts lives at risk." The Government
has not produced a list of trusts where A&
E departments have closed or are threatened. But the Tories say they have
identified hospitals in 29 NHS trusts:
Ashford and St Peter's
Hospitals; Barking, Havering and Redbridge; Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals;
Buckinghamshire Hospitals;
Calderdale
and Huddersfield; East and North
Hertfordshire; East
Sussex
Hospitals; Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals; North
Bristol;
George
Eliot Hospital;
Good Hope Hospital, Sutton Coldfield;
Hinchingbrooke Health Care; North West London Hospitals; Oxford Radcliffe
Hospitals;
Pennine
Acute Hospitals; Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath; Queen Mary's Sidcup;
Royal Free Hampstead; Royal Surrey Hospital, Guildford; Royal West Sussex;
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals; South
Tees Hospitals; South Warwickshire General Hospitals; United
Lincolnshire Hospitals;
West Hertfordshire Hospitals; Whipps Cross University Hospital; Whittington
Hospital; Worthing and Southlands Hospitals.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Times
6 December 2006 |
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Private contracts "destabilise NHS". Doctors are being forced to
refer patients to private centres for fast track treatment by NHS bosses
while local hospitals have longer waiting times imposed upon them. The
British Medical Association has condemned the move calling it a "two-tier"
health service that is being used to prop up privately-run centres. They
also claim that it makes a mockery of the Government's "patient
choice" policy. In one instance, GPs in Basingstoke,
Hampshire, have been told to divert people who need routine hip and knee
operations away from North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke and to surgical
centres run by Capio, a Swedish company. While waiting times at the private
centres are as low as six weeks and a maximum of 10 weeks, health bosses are
imposing a "go slow" on orthopaedic surgery at North Hampshire Hospital by
refusing to fund routine hip and knee surgery unless the patient waits at
least 16 weeks. One GP said: "The business with Capio is a disgrace. We have
been told that operations will be done extremely quickly… but there are a
whole lot of people waiting longer than that on the local hospital waiting
list. I don't understand why they can't invest this money in the hospital
service itself." Similar "go slow" arrangements are working in
Coventry and Warwickshire.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Telegraph
11 December 2006 |
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Save Our NHS.
People United Saving Hospitals, the campaign started by
Nuneaton woman, Vanessa Casey, held a torchlit protest in the town last
night. Chanting "no ifs no buts, no hospital cuts", the protesters marched
from the Griff and Coton Social Club in Heath End Road to Nuneaton Town Hall
to protest against proposed cuts to services at George Elliot Hospital.
Under the plans, Nuneaton will lose its baby care unit and some children's
services. Emergency out-of-hours operations will also be transferred to
University Hospital in Walsgrave. Miss Casey, of Bucks Hill, said: "We need
to keep our maternity, the special care baby unit and children's services at
the hospital. I feel that years ago people fought for the things we've got
and today if we don't fight for things at the hospital what are our children
and grandchildren going to have ?"
The rally was one of many held nationally in places such as
Kendal,
Chichester,
Hinckley, Coventry and Redditch to form a united front. In
London, marches
sang carols at the gates of the Department of Health.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Coventry Evening Telegraph 19 December 2006 |
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NHS trusts with
total £186m deficit could get extra funds. Seventeen indebted NHS trusts
whose income was capped under the transition to
payment by results are now
eligible for additional financial support in 2007/
08, the Department of Health has said. The trusts reported a combined
deficit of more than £186m in 2005/
06, with over half forecasting a deficit in 2006/
07, eight of them more than 5% of annual turnover. A further ten
trusts whose income was also capped yet who have not experienced a deficit
will also be eligible for support from their strategic health authorities.
Any support given will have to be approved by the DoH and reported in
financial plans. Potential recipient trusts include
South Warwickshire General Hospitals Trust, which has a £14m deficit,
equivalent to 13% of annual turnover. The trust last year told Public
Finance it would not have a deficit at all if it was not capped. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Public
Finance 5 January 2007 |
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'Job and bed
cutter' is new NHS boss. The appointment of a new interim chief
executive at Epsom
and St Helier NHS University Hospitals Trust has sparked further
speculation over its future. Graham Smith took over the position on January
4 after the departure of his predecessor Lorraine Clifton. The former chief
executive left the trust after criticism from Surrey health scrutiny
committee for planning significant changes without adequate public
consultation. Mr Smith has filled the same position for brief periods at
various trusts across the country over the past six years. Prior to
accepting the job at Epsom and St Helier he was interim chief executive at
South
Warwickshire General Hospitals NHS Trust from May until September 2006.
While there, he was challenged with saving £9m in a year to try and bring
down Warwick Hospital's £23m deficit. At the time, the Warwick Courier
reported that due to merging wards the medical unit only had four staff
looking after 39 patients from midnight onwards. Geoff Martin, head of
campaigns at pressure group London Health Emergency, said: "It's like he has
been on a national tour. He's been all over the country and seems to go to
trusts to cut jobs and beds." Mr Martin urged people to continue putting
pressure on the trust to cease cuts and closures. Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Sutton
Guardian 12 January 2007 |
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Health service shake-up defended.
PROPOSALS to transfer seriously-ill patients in Rugby straight to Coventry,
and further cuts to bed numbers, have been approved - and defended. Under
new recommendations, patients during 'off peak' hours and weekends will be
taken straight to the University Hospital for treatment, rather than the
Hospital of St. Cross. The plans were put forward by the Coventry and Acute
Services Review Board, which has been considering a number of plans
affecting hospitals across Warwickshire. Although it means patients would
have to wait longer for treatment, Dr. Mark Newbold, managing director for
the St. Cross, said it would help Rugby patients access greater care faster.
Rugby Advertiser
16 January 2007 |
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Ward shuts at
new hospital. Bosses at
Coventry's new
University Hospital have announced plans to close a ward and axe 24 beds
- just six months after it opened. Ward 33a is to close down under the
plans, which will save the hospital trust about £400,000, and the staff and
patients will be spread around other wards. But staff and union officials
have accused hospital management of failing to think through the plans,
which could come in to force as early as February 1. And they say mixing the
wards is a potential disaster, as it could see cases of superbug MRSA rocket
at University Hospital, which has until now had a good record for the bug.
Charlie Sarrell, regional officer for Unison, said: "They're closing ward
33a and shunting everybody to 22 and 32, and one of our main concerns is
that services will be lumped in together, and this could be dangerous. This
is not good clinical practice. Management are taking the view that there can
be fewer beds if there's a faster throughput of surgical patients, but
surgical beds are used when there is an over-flow of clinical patients, so
where will they go ? There are no
redundancies indicated but we are concerned about the disruption to staff
and the fact that the management seem to be rushing this through. There will
be more pressure on staff, consultants will be expected to be more available
and nurses could end up discharging patients, which is not their job." One
nurse affected by the closure, who asked not to be named, said she was
worried that nurses were being asked to reapply for their jobs. She said: "
We've been told we have to reapply for our own jobs within a week. They told
us there were going to be bed closures and it was for economic reasons."
Acting director of nursing Dr Ann-Marie Cannaby said: "We are not making any
nurses redundant. A small number of nurses will have to work on a different
ward but they are being asked for their preference as to where they would
like to work."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Coventry
Evening Telegraph 19 January 2007 |
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A&E review is
planned. Health chiefs have agreed to review accident and emergency
services across
Worcestershire, including the minor injuries unit at Kidderminster. The
review is expected to take into account "interesting ideas" put forward by
Wyre Forest MP Dr Richard Taylor. It follows calls to restore a doctor
service at the unit in Kidderminster to help save thousands of patients from
making a 40-mile round trip to Worcester. Worcestershire Primary Care Trust
chief executive Paul Bates today said: "The trust is under pressure to make
sure it reaches the 98% target of people who attend A&
E being seen within four hours. With that in mind we will be carrying
out a wide-ranging review of A& E,
including the minor injuries unit, and how out-of-hours GP services operate.
This is not about restoring accident and emergency at Kidderminster. We are
planning to review the way we are operating." Members of the trust yesterday
met to hear calls for a doctor to be restored to the minor injuries casualty
unit at Kidderminster. Health campaigners from Worcestershire yesterday
descended on London to join a mass rally against Government plans to close
or downgrade hospitals. The group turned up at Westminster to support people
protesting against hospitals suffering a similar fate to Kidderminster.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of West
Midlands Express & Star 19 January 2007 |
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Nurse steps in
over axed blood tests. Nurse Pat Brady is
launching
her own blood test clinics - weeks after being made redundant by the
NHS. Mrs Brady was the only member of staff forced out of a job when
Coventry Teaching Primary Care Trust controversially decided to scrap
its community blood test service. Mrs Brady said: "I came up with the idea
when I was talking to an elderly lady a few weeks ago and she told me she
had been to the new hospital and the trip had cost her £25 in a taxi. I
thought starting my own service out in the community could help people like
her." Mrs Brady said she and many of her colleagues had been sad to hear the
service was being scrapped. But she believes the decision will become such
an extra burden on the hospitals and cause so many complaints that the
service will be reintroduced in the future. About 500 people are protesting
about cuts to the blood test service in Cheylesmore. The clinics were cut
back as part of a bid by the PCT to save £10.5m. From next week, people will
have to attend either University Hospital, Walsgrave, for blood tests, or a
unit on the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital site, in the city centre.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Coventry
Evening Telegraph 26 January 2007 |
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Delays will get
even worse… In the first days after blood testing services have been
moved from 14 neighbourhood clinics to two
Coventry Hospitals, patients have been waiting up to 90 minutes for
tests and hospital staff are warning of impending chaos as queues build up.
Supervising Nurse Jayne Moore admitted on Friday that the Coventry and
Warwick phlebotomy clinic was almost chaotic. "Our numbers are going up here
but we're not getting any extra staff - we had an awful time last week and I
can only see it getting worse," she said. "We will cope with it because we
have no choice, but we'll end up getting complaints because people will have
to wait longer." Pathology services manager Carl Holland said: "The two
sites are already doing about 900 patients a day between them, but now we're
expecting an extra 850 a week." Spokesman for Coventry Teaching PCT Simon
Dudman said: "It is regrettable that changes to this service will be
inconvenient to a small number of patients. The NHS has a duty to prioritise
services for those with the greatest health need within the financial
resources available."
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public of Coventry
Evening Telegraph 30 January 2007 |
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Epileptic boy, 13, denied treatment. A DEVASTATED mother has
criticised penny-pinching health bosses after they turned down funding for
potentially life-saving treatment for her teenage son. Doctors treating
13-year-old John Love had applied for £7,500 for a nerve stimulating device
which could help treat his severe epilepsy. However, Warwickshire Primary
Care Trust has turned down the application, claiming it was not
'cost-effective'. John's mother, Eve, of Smeaton Lane, Stretton-under-Fosse,
said the decision - which she claims is the first refusal of funding of its
kind 'for years' - had ruined his chance for an improved life.
Rugby Advertiser
1 February 2007 |
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'Super bug killed my mum' - claim. A DISTRAUGHT woman claims
that a deadly superbug could be lurking at Rugby's Hospital of St. Cross
after her mother died from contracting it. The woman, who did not wish to be
identified, told the Rugby Advertiser her mother died from clostridium
difficile (c. diff) after being treated at the hospital. The woman, herself
a nurse now living in Weymouth, claimed the hospital was not clean enough to
prevent the bug from spreading. Cases of c. diff have steadily increased in
recent years but most people who catch the infection make a full recovery.
However, the woman's 88-year-old mother from Lutterworth, who she did not
want to name, died on January 25. She was taken to St. Cross days before
Christmas with infected leg ulcers and looked to be recovering well until
contracting the bug. The woman said she visited her on December 27 to
discover she had been moved into a side ward as a precaution against c.
diff.
Rugby Advertiser
1 February 2007 |
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Crisis looms as GPs
face cutbacks. Doctors are warning that a crisis is looming at GP surgeries
across
Coventry. They fear major cutbacks in services, including job losse | |