NHS
Funding the NHS, by Jack Rowland
I was born in 1950 so have been fortunate in my lifetime that the NHS has existed throughout that time. During my formative years I remember listening to the family discussions that took place concerning health provision that was available before the NHS was created. By and large my parents and grandparents feared having to seek health related help – they were all working class living in, what was then, a poor area of London.
My formative years, hearing stories at first hand, forged the views I still have today regarding the type of society I want to live in and the one I want to see for my children. They are both in their 30’s with good University degrees, good careers and living in London and Bournemouth, but cannot afford to buy a property yet and do not have the salary linked pension provision that I enjoyed during my career.
Where I live now in Seaton we are experiencing the same problem with the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) that other areas of the U.K. are experiencing, namely giving options across a number of local hospitals with the aim of reducing bed spaces. The CCG has gone through the sham of holding public consultation events to be able to put a tick in a box when no doubt the decision had already been made when looking at options to save money.
To say that alternative services will be put in place to avoid people having to occupy bed spaces is just a future promise at the moment and, in my opinion, will not adequately tackle the problems that people will face in the future with people living longer, but, as we know now, having more multiple difficult health issues allied with possibly living at home alone or with another aged husband / wife or partner.
So who is the real culprit?
I lay the blame squarely at the door of Central Government and the current Conservative stance. The U.K. is the 5th or 6th richest country (depending on which statistic you believe). The Government decide how the expense cake will be divided and the priorities whilst servicing Government debt and hopefully growing the size of the cake. I want to see the NHS and Social Services receive a larger slice of the cake as we can afford to do that if the will is there to match the current and future needs.
I want to see everyone benefit fairly from a growing economy and in a society where health and social care is not subject to a post code lottery and a fair national tax system for individuals and businesses that encourages individuals and businesses to grow and develop without resorting to tax avoidance schemes or exploiting loopholes.
I know that the cost of the NHS and Social Services will grow due to an ageing population and I’m not advocating throwing more money at them without strong controls over how the money is spent, but I do want to see the same improved provision in the future regardless of where you live or your financial situation. As a country we can afford to do this without decisions being devolved to a local level that has resulted in the current situation and Central Government pointing the finger and blaming health professionals.
Although I am a Councillor on Seaton Town Council the views I have expressed above are my personal views. JR
RD&E back on red alert
Local NHS crisis deepens: RD&E back on red alert, according to Express & Echo
Royal College criticises bed cuts & Autumn Statement failure
The Royal College of Surgeons vice-president, consultant urological surgeon Ian Eardley, says that figures showing continuing over-occupancy of NHS hospital beds in England ‘suggest bed reductions have now gone too far in the absence of sufficient social care or community care alternatives.’
Exactly what we are all saying to NEW Devon CCG! Time to SUSPEND THE CONSULTATION AND GET ON WITH IMPROVING THE COMMUNITY CARE ALTERNATIVES.
The RCS leader added “We are now seeing increasing numbers of frail older patients in hospital because they have nowhere else to go. The lack of additional money in the autumn statement for social care and the NHS is only going to make this even harder.”
Neil Parish MP said he would press for additional resources – what will he do now that his Government has let him down?
Exeter rally to Save Devon’s NHS, 3rd Dec.
3 December at 12:00–14:00, Exeter (Princesshay). ‘Anyone from all parts of Devon are due to meet as one and show a united front against the closures of our hospitals and beds. It follows on after a recent similar Sees Red Day in North Devon. So the theme will be for all to wear something RED. Please forward this far and wide and let’s get a huge gathering together to tell the health authorities that these cuts and closures are totally unacceptable.’ EAST DEVON people meet 11.45 at Civic Centre opposite bus station, Paris Street:
Somerset NHS services handed over to Virgin
Just over the border in Somerset: services handed over the Richard Branson’s Virgin Healthcare. Once this happens, will we ever get a proper NHS back? Coming to the NHS Devon in the near future?
EEDC Tory leader votes against Claire Wright DCC motion to re-examine Honiton hospital closure
At Devon County Council, Claire Wright (Ind.) proposed that the CCG consultation be suspended while the CCG included both Honiton and Okehampton in the options to retain beds. Conservative councillors voted it down and her resolution was lost 5-7.
Reblogged from the site of Claire Wright, indefatiguable independent councillor fighting non-stop on health service cuts.
NOTE: EDDC Tory Leader Paul Diviani sabotaged her effort to “stop the clock” on cuts to re-examine the effects of closing Honiton and Okehampton hospitals.
REPORT FROM CLAIRE WRIGHT, DCC HEALTH SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
“• CCG does not know how many more staff it needs
• No answer (yet) to public health stated assumption that care at home costs the same as care in big hospitals
My proposal at yesterday’s health and wellbeing scrutiny committee meeting to suspend the consultation which proposes to halve the remaining community hospital beds in Eastern Devon, fell by two votes.
There was a packed public gallery. Several members of the public, including Di Fuller, chair of Sidmouth’s patient and public involvement group and Cathy Gardner, EDDC Independent councillor for Sidmouth spoke powerfully, expressing deep concerns about the bed losses.
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NHS: How to profit when excrement hitting the air conditioning
Shocking tales of the creeping privatisation behind the NEW Devon CCG’s cuts.
The NHS’ new “Success Regime” aims to put a firm brake on health spending, but it’s proving to be a bonanza for consultants on lucrative contracts who oversee the process. And some of these consultants are former senior NHS managers who received generous payoffs when their jobs disappeared as a result of the Tories’ top-down reorganisation of the health service in 2012.
There were a few wry smiles, therefore, at Monday evening’s public “consultation” in Sidmouth to discuss closing the town’s community hospital beds, when Dame Ruth Carnall, chair of the “Success Regime” which is monitoring these cuts, bemoaned the disastrous “fragmentary” effects of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act.
She may not like it, but as chief executive of NHS London which was abolished by the Act, she received a payoff in 2013 which included a £2.2 million pension pot.
Then with another former NHS executive she created…
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Health funding crunch nears
On the heels of yesterday’s successful meeting with nearly 300 people in Seaton Town Hall (see right), Independent County Councillor Claire Wright has now linked to the CCG’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan from September which sets out the need for cuts, including, she says:
- 100s of more bed cuts to acute hospitals such as the RD&E.
- cuts to stroke, A&E, paediatrics, maternity, breast services, ENT, radiology, heart surgery and vascular surgery
Claire says, ‘It is more important than ever that our MPs back Sarah Wollaston and ask for more funding in the chancellor’s Autumn Statement.’ This is the point that Seaton Town Council also identified and which I put to Neil Parish MP yesterday. Parish accepted the point and said he will work for ‘more resources’, collaborating with Wollaston.
In response to a question from Paul Arnott of Colyton, former Chair of East Devon Alliance, Parish indicated that he would be prepared to vote against the Government on the Autumn Statement (23 Nov.) if there was no more funding for the NHS in Devon. Watch this space!
A troubling thing from yesterday’s meeting – Parish specifically asked Rebecca Harriott, CCG Chief Officer, if more funding would mean the community beds cuts would be reviewed: she refused to give that assurance.
Devon NHS debate – talk but no action
14 hours ago. [Update: Transcript of the debate with Swire and Parish speeches is now online here.]
PARLIAMENT DEBATE ON HOSPITAL BED CUTS MAY HAVE BEEN USEFUL BUT HEALTH MINISTER STONEWALLED MPs
Hugo Swire’s scheduled debate in parliament this afternoon about Devon’s NHS cuts was attended by almost all Devon MPs.
Ben Bradshaw and Sarah Wollaston unfortunately were unable to be there as they were in a health select committee meeting.
Although the health minister present (I don’t know who it was) pretty much stonewalled all the requests for more funding I do think that virtually all Devon’s MPs getting in a room all collectively complaining that NHS services in their areas being cut, was quite powerful.
It was an interesting insight into the differences between what were all conservative MPs views. Some simply argued against the plans of the local NHS in Devon. Others argued quite vociferously for more funding. But all appeared to fall on deaf ears, if the minister’s anodyne response was anything to go by.
Hugo Swire referred at the beginning to a long list of “demands and asks” – yet at the end of his 10 minute speech all I heard was a list of concerns. The only thing I heard him ask for was a letter from the minister relating to the loss of GP out of hours service in Exmouth.
He was articulate and easy to listen to but lacked the conviction of someone who really wanted to change anything.
Hugo Swire also claimed that those who blamed the conservatives for health funding problems were “immature.”
Other MP speakers included Oliver Colville and Anne Marie Norris – both of whom I thought were long-winded and ineffectual, Geoffrey Cox argued strongly for a fairer funding formula for Devon (he also sounded as though he was auditioning for Shakespeare), Peter Heaton Jones, who also argued for more funding (and stuck to his guns when the health minister tried to slap him down) and Neil Parish, who I thought was the best speaker.
Mr Parish displayed what appeared to be genuine passion for local services and frustration at Honiton Hospital being cut out of the consultation. He asked the minister for action on this, but the minister merely replied that it was a consultation and people should respond regardless!
Mr Parish called for all Devon MPs to oppose the bed cuts rather than a piecemeal approach, which is a position I entirely agree with. He stopped short, however, of calling for more funding.
The health minister’s repeated “gentle reminders” to his conservative MPs felt to me to have a rather menacing element, as though he resented being called out from his office to listen to a group of his own irksome backbenchers. They were “gently reminded” about a range of issues such as the consultation and NHS funding – which the minister said had already been uplifted for Devon.
The bottom line (and only piece of action it seemed to me) was that the minister agreed to write to Hugo Swire about Exmouth out of hours GP cuts. I think that this was it.
Hugo Swire did attempt a last minute currying of favour with the minister by reminding him that it was the Devon MPs who won the general election for the conservatives. Unfortunately the appeal seemed to fall upon stony, if not rocky, ground.
I would have liked to have seen a united front with a clear list of “asks” shared by all Devon MPs (after all they are of the same party), and speeches peppered with searching questions.
I hope that this will be the start of many more such similar debates on behalf of the residents of Devon.
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Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 