Imperial Protest - Lobby and Annual General Meeting
The board of Imperial NHS Trust seems determined to push on with closing Charing Cross Hospital despite clear evidence of a lack of capacity in acute services and unrealistic expectations about how much clinical work community services could cope with.
It's important to recognise that both Hammersmith & Fulham and Ealing councils have refused to sign up to the STPs on the basis that it would mean signing up to the closure of CX and Ealing Hospitals. Most local people fully support this stance and will be horrified to hear of suggestions that the councils may lose out in funding or influence in some areas as a result.
We'll be lobbying outside Imperial NHS Trust's AGM to make these points and then attending the meeting to listen to the debate and hopefully ask questions at the end. (Flyer attached.)
Imperial NHS Trust Lobby - Protest Wed 14th Sept lobby from 16.45 AGM starts 17.45 St Paul's Church Queen Caroline St W69PJ
Save Our Hospitals is gearing up for a busy autumn! And we begin this week with a lobby of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust AGM:
JOIN OUR PROTEST
LOBBY AT IMPERIAL NHS TRUST ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Wednesday 14th September 2016 from 16.45
St Paul’s Church, Queen Caroline St, Hammersmith Broadway, W6
Make your voice heard in support of local health services and against the continuing threat to Charing Cross Hospital. Supporters will also be going into the AGM at 17.45 to listen and raise questions – book online at https://www.imperial.nhs.uk/about-us/events/agm-2016
This is part of our ongoing campaign against Shaping a Healthier Future (SaHF) and the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) which threaten our local health service and the NHS more widely.
NW LONDON STP
After persistent pressure, including a Freedom of Information request, health authorities in NW London were forced to publish the STP for our area – the first in the country to be published. As with SaHF, the plan is full of pious hopes and little practical detail on how alternatives to hospital provision can be provided in the context of savage cuts. The key aim of STPs is to close the funding gap between what is spent on patient care and what the government is willing to provide. THIS IS A POLITICAL CHOICE, not a health-driven plan. Put simply, the NHS – which was recognised internationally as the most efficient and effective public health provider in the world – is now seriously underfunded.
Today (Sunday 11th September) the BBC has reported that even the Chief Executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, is alarmed at the current situation:
NHS Providers, the organisation that represents hospitals in England, says unless urgent funding is provided it will have to cut staff, bring in charges or introduce "draconian rationing" of treatment, for example, of non-urgent operations.
It highlights that 80% of England's acute hospitals are in financial deficit, compared with 5% three years ago - while missed A&E waiting time targets have risen from 10% to 90%.
Imperial is one of the hospital trusts with a huge financial deficit (£50M). Instead of fighting for more funding, local health authorities aim to save money by closing 500-600 hospital beds, turning Charing Cross and Ealing hospitals into little more than day centres, and selling off NHS land. How they do this while improving facilities in the community is a mystery.
CONGRATULATIONS to H&F and Ealing local councilswhich have refused to sign off any proposals which include the downgrading/closure of Charing Cross and Ealing Hospitals. As the leaders of the Councils have said, the STPs are ‘about the breaking up and selling off of the NHS’. As a result, there’s a suggestion that both councils could be penalised with reduced access to social care funding and policy making forums. THIS IS UNDEMOCRATIC AND UNFAIR!
CAN YOU HELP?
SOH is a campaign group of local volunteers who are fighting to protect our health service. We are entirely funded by contributions from local people. If you would like to contribute you can send donation to SOH, 7 Kimbell Gardens, London SW6 6QG or Directly to our account with Lloyds: Sort Code 309897 Account Number 39956060. We also regularly produce leaflets with updated information for distribution. We would like to increase our deliveries to homes in our area. If you feel you could deliver leaflets to your street or estate and maybe neighbouring streets, could you please email us atscxandh@gmail.com giving us contact details and we will get back to you.
JUNIOR DOCTORShave voted to reject the imposition by Jeremy Hunt of a contract which they see as UNSAFE FOR PATIENTS AND DOCTORS, DISCRIMINATORY AGAINST WOMEN DOCTORS AND UNFAIR TO ALL DOCTORS. They have called off their action this coming week because of their concerns about patient safety. SOH agrees with the Junior Doctors that the NHS cannot be run safely with overworked, over-stressed and underpaid staff.
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
We’d be delighted if you could join us at any of the following events:
Wednesday 14th September 7.30-9.30pm SOH Organising Meeting, at Hammersmith Town Hall. This is immediately after the Imperial AGM. All welcome!
Saturday 24th September 2.00-4.00pm Stall at Shepherds Bush market, Uxbridge Rd end.
Saturday 8th October North End Rd market. H&F Council have again offered SOH a stall in the market on their “Autumn Market” event. SOH will be there from 10.00 – 16.00. This is a fun event which we hope you might attend – and even spend some time with us at the stall.
Please join our campaigning when you can – we need our NHS and our local hospitals.
Council leaders refuse to back proposal amid fears Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals could lose A&E and other services as focus shifts to ‘virtual’ care
Charing Cross hospital in London, one of the two facilities feared to be under threat of downgrade or closure under the sustainability and transformation plan. Photograph: Gregory Wrona / Alamy/Alamy
Council leaders have refused to sign up to a plan to “transform” NHS services amid fears two major London hospitals, Ealing and Charing Cross, are to be downgraded and will lose their A&E units and other acute services, the Guardian can reveal.
Plans being developed around England to tackle the NHS funding crisis involve increasing focus on “virtual” and outpatient care, and internal documents show there are plans in north-west London to close or downgrade its acute hospitals from nine to five.
Both west London hospitals are highly valued by local residents and have been the subject of campaigns to save them when they were threatened with closures in the past.
Leaders at both Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham councils say they are determined that these hospitals should remain open with their A&E and operating surgeries and so have refused to sign up to the north-west London sustainability and transformation plan (STP), which is one of 44 such plans in development around England.
Critics of the plans fear that up to 500 acute beds could be lost if these hospitals are closed or downgraded.
The majority of the 44 plans – described by NHS England as internal documents – have not been published. The Guardian has seen two of the plans.
The STP for North-West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups advocates:
• Reducing acute hospitals from the current nine in north-west London to five and reducing acute admissions by a third. The document says “... consolidate acute services onto five sites (the consolidation of acute services to fewer sites is not supported by the London boroughs of Ealing and Hammersmith & Fulham)”.
• The document also states that to replace the acute hospital closures there will be a “local hospital model” introduced. This has not yet been fully defined but is likely to be minor injuries/out of hours GP centres, rehab beds for elderly people after accidents, but no A&E, no medical or surgical beds, and no operating theatres.
• Making parts of the NHS “virtual” rather than using physical buildings for some consultations, and selling off some buildings that would become surplus to requirements as a result.
• Revolutionising the outpatient model by using technology to reduce face to face consultations by up to 40%.
• Give patients phone or face to face coaching to treat themselves.
Some of the proposals have support from experts and NHS professionals, as there are huge pressures on budgets as the UK copes with an ageing population.
However, the document says “unsurprisingly there are many risks to the achievement” of the ambitions in the plans.
Steve Cowan, leader of Hammersmith & Fulham council, told the Guardian that NHS officials were being forced to drive through the changes by the government.“We condemn the Tory government for drawing up these plans. This is about closing hospitals and getting capital receipts. It’s a cynical rehash of earlier plans and is about the breaking up and selling off of the NHS. It will lead to a loss of vital services and will put lives at risk.”
He added: “Our job is to protect the NHS and this plan is about dismantling it. This document is an affront to the sensibilities of the people of north-west London.”
Julian Bell, leader of Ealing council, said: “We refused to sign up to the STP plans because we do not support the closure of Ealing and Charing Cross acute hospitals … We have made it abundantly clear that we will campaign until our last breath to save Ealing and Charing Cross hospitals. We do support some of the proposals for more integrated health and social care but we feel we will be punished for not signing up to these plans.”
The document seen by the Guardian does not detail numbers of beds facing cuts in the two London hospitals. When asked why no numbers were specified for planned bed closures in the document, London North-West Healthcare NHS trust said: “The STP does not focus on beds because this ignores the fact that we are trying to deliver the best possible care for people, with no unnecessary delays or waits and with expanded services in the community to prevent avoidable admissions.”
The plan is regarded as one of the most detailed and comprehensive STPs produced so far and a strong indication of the government’s future plans for a radical transformation of the NHS.
NHS officials told the Guardian that any individual local council that chose not to engage with NHS partners would forgo the opportunity to join up social care and health services more effectively, but that would be their choice.
The risks highlighted in the plan include a failure to shift enough acute care out of hospitals, a possible collapse of the private care-home market and a failure to get people to take responsibility for their own health.
Council officials claim that pressure was exerted on them to sign off an executive summary of the draft plans quickly without seeing the full document. NHS officials have denied this.
The north-west London STP states that the demand for healthcare is projected to rise with an expected 53% increase in cancer cases by 2030 as well as an increase in conditions of old age such as dementia, yet the significant reduction in hospitals and acute beds is deemed the best way forward.
NHS England believes the STP process will bring many wider benefits including more joined-up care and that there is evidence to show care closer to home has advantages.
The pace of the planned changes is alarming critics. The north-west London plan states that changes need to be delivered “at scale and pace” in order to have a financially sustainable system by 2020.
John Lister, secretary of Keep the NHS Public, said: “The draft plan for north-west London really is a shocker. The assumptions they are making in this document are just enormous. No services anywhere will be safe with these plans. NHS managers are quite desperate when faced with massive and growing deficits, and are resorting to untested plans which will target the most vulnerable and the least mobile people.”
