NHS waiting list penalties delayed

Care services for the elderly cut.

Phone line for NHS whistleblowers.

Lansley claims that there are huge increases in readmittance to hospitals under the previous government. He says “These figures show how Labour’s obsession with waiting time targets meant that patients were treated like parts on a production line to be hurried through the system rather than like people who need to be properly cared for.” I’m not convinced by these figures and need to see the bigger picture e.g. where twice as many people treated, were they older or sicker, etc?

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Elderly care at risk due to local cuts / Britain / Home – Morning Star

Care services for the elderly are being put in jeopardy due to government cuts trickling down to local councils, a leading charity warned yesterday.

Age UK director Michelle Mitchell said reductions in council social care budgets risked leaving an increasing number of elderly people with “absolutely no support at all, or poor quality and limited support.”

Research by the King’s Fund showed that by 2015 estimates suggest that there will be one million older people needing significant care but without assistance, a figure that is up from almost 900,000 in 2012.

And Ms Mitchell warned in an interview with the Guardian: “Care is in crisis and it is getting worse. We have evidence to show that local authorities have cut care for older people by 4.5 per cent this year, and this at a time when social care is chronically underfunded anyway.”
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BBC News – NHS whistleblowers helpline due to be launched

A free helpline for whistleblowers in the NHS and social services is to be launched on Sunday.

The move is part of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s drive to ensure staff can raise “genuine concerns” about standards “without fear of reprisal”.

But a whistleblowers’ group said the announcement was an “admission of failure” that existing internal processes were not working.
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Lansley slams Labour’s NHS ‘production line’ as figures show emergency readmissions have surged over past decade | Mail Online

Hundreds of thousands of patients every year are readmitted to hospital after being sent home too soon, figures suggest.

Alarming figures show that over a decade the number of NHS patients who were readmitted to hospital in an emergency within a month of being discharged soared – rising by more than 75 per cent in the past decade.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley last night accused hospitals of treating patients ‘like parts on a production line’ as they tried to hit Labour’s waiting list targets.
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The NHS competition watchdog has ruled against plans for the merger of three East London Hospitals. It appears that this is to protect future possible commercial interests – it risks “stifling the development of alternative services and providers in future.”

Huge cuts in wages in the North-East suggests job cuts.

Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham reveals that directors of primary care trusts (PCTs) across England have been sent pro-forma resignation letters.

Unions accuse the government of being confrontational over public-sector pensions.

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Competition panel rules against hospital merger | Tower Hamlets | London

 

The NHS competition watchdog has ruled against plans for the merger of three East London Hospitals after London’s health authority approved them this week.

The Cooperation and Competition Panel claims the merger would reduce patient choice and that its benefits “do not outweigh the potential drawbacks.”

Tower Hamlets’ Royal London Hospital and Mile End Hospital are among those set to join what could become the country’s largest NHS trust with a turnover of £1.1 billion.

St Barts and the London hospital will merge with Whipps Cross and Newham NHS trusts if the union gets a green light from the Department of Health in April.

But the CCP is advising ministers that the move, backed by all three trusts, will deprive patients of alternatives by putting all the hospitals under one roof, and risks “stifling the development of alternative services and providers in future.”

The ruling comes one month after a leaked government document indicating plans to open NHS care to private providers, causing furore among health professionals.

CCP director Catherine Davies said: “We know there are some difficult challenges facing healthcare services in north east London but these proposals don’t necessarily provide the best solution.”

But Peter Morris, lead chief executive for the merger, said it was essential to “secure the long-term viability” of local services.

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Fears for North NHS staff as wage bill slashed – Today’s News – News – JournalLive

HEALTH trusts in the North East are planning to make almost £90m worth of cuts to their wage bills in the next few years, a shock report has found.

Information released by the Health Service Journal (HSJ) has analysed the three-year workforce plans of all foundation trusts in England and has identified that most are planning a wave of cuts to staffing bills.

Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust has forecast the biggest percentage wage bill cut of 7.9% by 2014, closely followed by Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust at 7.4% and County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust at 6.9%.

Although the findings do not identify where the cuts will come from, union bosses have claimed that any savings on wage bills will inevitably result in the axing of some frontline staff.

Stephanie Dunn, acting regional director of the Royal College of Nursing Northern Region said: “This confirms what the RCN has been saying for some time.

“Namely that despite the Government pretending that the NHS budget is protected, in reality they are forcing trusts to make significant cuts of a magnitude not seen for more than a generation.

“Frontline jobs are being lost, and we know what happens when we go down this road. The quality of patient care suffers and waiting lists increase”.
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Labour: NHS chiefs asked to resign | News

Hundreds of senior NHS figures have been sent letters asking for their resignation as part of the move towards controversial health reforms, Labour has revealed.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham said chairs and directors of primary care trusts (PCTs) across England have been sent pro-forma resignation letters, even though reforms have not yet made their way through Parliament.

Letters include an explanation of what is required, as well as pre-written resignation letters.

Mr Burnham said the move threatened to create a leadership vacuum and accused Health Secretary Andrew Lansley of “steering the NHS towards the rocks”.

The move has also prompted a letter from a group of chairs in Cumbria and Lancashire, which said although they had mixed views about the Health and Social Care Bill, they were united in thinking that “long held and cherished standards, efficiency and effectiveness” should not be put under “dire threat”.

Under the reorganisation of the NHS, GPs will be handed the bulk of the health budget to buy in services for patients, [we know this to be untrue and simply spin / part of the official narrative] with a new NHS commissioning board overseeing the process. PCTs are being streamlined into “clusters” as part of the transition, with the aim of getting them to work with GP practices and emerging “GP consortia”.
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UNION chiefs yesterday accused ministers of holding a gun to their heads over pressure to reach a deal on pensions today.

The ConDems could withdraw an improved offer tabled last month unless unions sign up to reforms that will mean working longer, paying more and retiring on less.

Treasury axeman Danny Alexander will update MPs on progress in talks tomorrow before they head off on their long Christmas break, effectively imposing a deadline.
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A spokesman for the civil service PCS union said: “They are trying to hold a gun to our heads.”

Teachers and civil servants are already fuming after the Government announced it was going ahead with a 3% increase in their pension contributions last week.

Unions representing town hall employees are on the verge of an agreement and talks involving NHS staff have gone well.

But a union source said that the Government looked “hell bent on confrontation” on the other schemes.

Sucking Lansley – The Independent

27/11/13 Having received a takedown notice from the Independent newspaper for a different posting, I have reviewed this article which links to an article at the Independent’s website in order to attempt to ensure conformance with copyright laws.

I consider this posting to comply with copyright laws since
a. Only a small portion of the original article has been quoted satisfying the fair use criteria, and / or
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dizzy

Labour health minister Baroness Thornton warns that health secretary Andrew Lansley aims to privatise the NHS in the same way as the gas and electricity sectors.

The Public Accounts Committee reports on obstacles preventing NHS trusts achieving foundation status. Trusts need to achieve foundation status under Lansley’s plans. Issues identified include financial difficulties, strategic issuess, performance and quality problems.

Lansley responds by ordering independent assessments by private consultants of NHS trust boards.

Labour is promoting their ‘plan B’ in an attempt to stave off the worst excesses of the Con-Dem coalition government’s Destroy the NHS / Health and Social Care Bill. They are calling on health professionals to support them.

Students at University College London (UCL) have passed a vote of no confidence in their Provost, Malcolm Grant. Students object to his intention to continue running UCL while accepting Andrew Lansley’s invitation to chair the new NHS Commissioning Board.

A few recent news articles about the UK’s Conservative and Liberal-Democrat (Conservative) coalition government – the ConDem’s – brutal attack on the National Health Service.

Labour warns Lansley will use Health Bill to privatise NHS | GPonline.com

The House of Lords began its debate on Tuesday of Part 3 of the Health Bill – the most controversial section that deals with proposals to increase competition in the NHS.

Labour health minister Baroness Thornton began the debate with a warning that health secretary Andrew Lansley aims to privatise the NHS in the same way as the gas and electricity sectors.

Mr Lansley is against a publicly run public sector and instead believes competition solves every problem, she said.

Baroness Thornton added that the Health Bill had been ‘conceived and constructed’ around plans to create a regulated market in the NHS.

She said: ‘It has become abundantly clear that the reason we have this mammoth Bill, bringing about the expensive and risky reorganisation of our NHS, is to create a regulated market in the NHS.

‘This Bill is a mess. It is now a catalogue of compromises, except the framework that we have on offer in Part 3, which would, over time, allow Mr Lansley’s vision to be fulfilled. He must be hanging on to that for dear life.’
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Achieving foundation status a ‘tall order’ for many NHS trusts | Healthcare Network | Guardian Professional

Financial and leadership problems are among the obstacles preventing NHS trusts from gaining foundation status, say MPs

Nearly half of hospitals that have still to attain foundation status are facing challenges more severe than previously thought, according to an MPs committee report.

The report, published by the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, says four out of five of hospitals seeking status were facing financial difficulties; 78% were tackling strategic issues and two thirds were facing performance and quality problems. Nearly 40% still needed to strengthen their governance and leadership.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the committee, said the government’s aim of all trusts becoming foundations by 2014 was “clearly a very tall order.”

Making all trusts viable will involve reconfiguration of some services, possibly through mergers and the committee says it is critical that local communities are consulted about these decisions and do benefit from them.

The cost of PFI schemes is an additional challenge for a limited number of hospitals. Analysis commissioned by the Department for Health identified six trusts that were unviable, largely because of their private finance charges.

However, the committee is particularly alarmed about London’s healthcare system, which has been allowed to deteriorate, despite problems which have been known about for many years.

“London is in a particularly shocking state and nobody has got a grip on long-standing problems,” Hodge said. “We remain to be convinced that combining struggling hospitals into larger trusts – as with south London – will somehow produce viable organisations offering good quality, accessible healthcare.”
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Andrew Lansley orders independent assessments of NHS boards | Society | The Guardian

Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, has ordered “independent assessments” of the boards of NHS trusts after a powerful parliamentary committee found that half of them had issues of “capacity and capability of leadership”, preventing them meeting the government’s deadline to become foundation hospitals by 2014.

Lansley will announce the new inspection regime, to be run by external consultants, as part of framework of change in the NHS to drive up standards. He has been dismayed by the findings of the public accounts committee who bluntly state the scale of the challenge ahead.

The committee said it will be a “very tall order to get” NHS trusts to become foundation hospitals, which are free from Whitehall control. The committe warn that four out of five of the 113 remaining trusts “face financial difficulties. Most face strategic challenges, performance issues and governance problems”.

Of these, 20 hospitals have declared that they will never make foundation status in their present circumstances – and half of these are in London. The MPs warn that while the department has said there are no current plans to close hospitals, “it is difficult to see why other organisations would want to take them on”.

“The chief executive of the NHS is only “moderately confident” that London’s hospital system can be turned round, and acknowledged the unique challenges and obstacles to be overcome,” said Margaret Hodge, chair of the committee.

She added that: “These trusts will be forced into reconfigurations or even mergers. This may deal with the financial challenges involved but could leave some deprived communities with unequal access to high quality healthcare, when hospital departments are closed and services moved.”

The issues surrounding financing have also seen senior doctors resign in disgust at the cuts. Yesterday it emerged that Guy Broome, an orthopaedic surgeon who chaired the medical staff committee at debt-ridden North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, told Pulse that he had resigned because patients were being denied care on financial rather than clinical grounds. He also claimed the hospital had attempted to gag him from publicly voicing his fears about patient safety.
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Labour promotes NHS ‘plan B’ in last-ditch attempt to derail reforms | Society | The Guardian

Labour is urging key medical leaders to back a plan B to shake up the NHS without using Andrew Lansley’s controversial proposals, in a last-ditch attempt to scupper the health and social care bill.

The party is hoping to persuade leaders of Britain’s doctors, nurses and midwives to join a campaign that would derail the health secretary’s plan by persuading enough MPs and peers to back their alternative, which they call their “stability plan”.

Andy Burnham, Lansley’s Labour party shadow, met about 40 presidents and chief executives of key organisations such as the British Medical Association, NHS Confederation and royal colleges representing nurses, surgeons and midwives on Wednesday as a first step to try to win their support.

Burnham hopes to capitalise on the huge concerns about the bill, and is trying to form a united front to argue for proceeding with some elements of Lansley’s plans, but not the major changes that have led critics to predict “the end of the NHS as we know it” in England.
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Should the head of a top UK university be implementing NHS cuts on the side? | openDemocracy

Students at University College London (UCL) have passed a vote of no confidence in their Provost, Malcolm Grant. This was triggered, most immediately, by students’ objection to his intention to continue running UCL while accepting Andrew Lansley’s invitation to chair the new NHS Commissioning Board. Though he doesn’t even use the NHS himself, Grant will be put in charge of a £100 billion health budget and the implementation of the coalition government’s NHS reforms, while also running a university of 24,000 students and 8000 staff. We don’t think either of these are part-time commitments.

Moreover, we reject any association of our university with Lansley’s plan to demolish the values that define our universal health service, and replace them with profit and competition. Our vote against Lansley’s appointee echoes nurses’ vote of no confidence in the Secretary himself and doctors’ condemnation of his plans.

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