Thursday, 31 July 2014
Breaking: Half of Charing Cross Hospital WILL be sold and services moved out
Campaigners were fighting against the changes at Charing Cross Hospital
Plans to sell more than half of Charing Cross Hospital and minimise or move many of its services have been approved.
Tears and anger were the order of the day at this morning’s (July 30) board meeting which confirmed proposals to sell 55 per cent of the site and ‘move out’ A&E services, as well as reducing inpatient beds from 360 to 24.
Two years of campaigning by the Save Our Hospitals group against changes to the hospital in Hammersmith culminated in just half an hour of the three hour meeting of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust’s board.
Dr Tracey Batten, CEO of the board, confirmed the changes under the Shaping a Healthier Future programme which also include the current building being replaced by a £150 million hospital once part of the site is sold off to pay for it.
New facilities will also be built at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington where the majority of emergency patients from Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex are set to go after their A&Es close on September 10.
When the plans were released last Thursday (July 24) Imperial were adamant the A&E is not closing , but at the meeting today Dr Batten could not give details. She said: “The A&E will not be closing but will be in line with an emergency services appropriate for a pioneering local hospital. We need to confirm what this is with guidance from NHS England.”
Other services to ‘move out’ into St Mary’s Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital include acute surgery, neurosurgery, the stroke unit, elderly care, urology, complex ear, nose and throat cases and community outpatient care.
The board also confirmed the Western Eye Hospital in Marylebone and 45 per cent of St Mary’s will be sold.
Emotional campaigners heckled the board members and one woman whose daughter has been a frequent user of Charing Cross started crying over the changes which they say will endanger people’s lives.
Labour Hammersmith MP, Andy Slaughter, was initially barred from the public meeting by NHS security guards but was let in after 20 minutes. Speaking after the decision, he said: “We were here to protest on behalf of thousands of west Londoners who don’t want their A&Es to close and a major hospital to be demolished.
“Now more than half the Charing Cross site is set to be sold, the existing hospital demolished and the new building will provide less than a quarter of the current floor space. All consultant emergency services will close or go elsewhere.
“These are irresponsible and half-baked decisions when the population is going up and the NHS is under unprecedented strain after four years of Tory cuts.”
Protesters were angry at the changes and what they say is a lack of empathy from NHS bosses. Before the meeting, John Coles, who lives off Askew Road, said: “I’m filled with misgiving about today because I feel all the decisions have been made but it doesn’t mean it’s right.”
Charing Cross’s urgent care centre is set to increase from 12 hours to 24 hours.
Lobbying MP Barred From NHS Public Meeting
Andy Slaughter tried to rally against hospital demolition
LABOUR MP Andy Slaughter was locked out of an NHS trust meeting yesterday as he and disability activists tried to lobby against the demolition of a hospital.
The shadow justice minister was barred from attending a public meeting held by management from Charing Cross Hospital in London.
He had to wait outside for 20 minutes after he rallied trade unionists and health campaigners on the dangers of the largest NHS closures programme to date.
Mr Slaughter said that the board of Imperial Trust “don’t know what they’re doing” and that the new plans were all “half-baked decisions.”
Despite local opposition, hospital bosses went ahead with the decision to close down the Charing Cross site.
Less than six weeks from the expected shut down of the nearby Hammersmith and Central Middlesex accident and emergency units, public information has yet to be disseminated.
“We were here to protest on behalf of 99 per cent of my constituents who don’t want both A&Es to close and a major hospital to be demolished,” said Hammersmith MP Mr Slaughter.
Yesterday’s meeting approved a series of controversial measures such as reducing Charing Cross’s in-patient beds from 360 to 24 and closing A&E facilities.
Among the emergency services earmarked for closure were the vital stroke and neurosurgery departments.
Plans for the site published last week revealed that current floor space would be reduced by more than 75 per cent.
“If you do go to the services that are left, they will be privatised, second class services that only have nurses or GP cover,” warned Mr Slaughter.
Currently 22,000 patients visit Charing Cross Hospital every year.
If it closes, patients will have to travel a further 20 minutes to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.
Yet according to released documents, almost half of St Mary’s is also set to be sold.
“At best, it means much longer waits,” said the MP, “But what I’m worried about is that it will cost lives.
“David Cameron and Boris Johnson are completely out of touch on this one.”
No public consultation will be taking place on the selling off and closure of Charing Cross and St Mary’s hospitals.
Double-speak row as west London hospital A&Es are ‘changed’ but not ‘shut’ in leaflet
Hammersmith Hospital: health chiefs have been accused of using “Orwellian” language (Picture: Google Streetview)
VIDEO - Orwellian hospital closure tactics
Orwellian hospital closure tactics
Tuesday July 29, 2014
Health bosses have been accused of deploying ‘Orwellian’-tactics by misleading patients in a £400,000 publicity campaign which claims that A&E units are ‘changing’ when in fact they are closing.
Public relations specialist, M&C Saatchi, has been hired by NHS bosses in North West London to provide advice and support for the campaign which starts this week and runs over the school summer holidays giving residents just six weeks’ notice of A&E closures at Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex on September 10. They will be replaced with a GP-led Urgent Care Centre treating minor injuries.
M&C Saatchi sent NHS bosses research to show that patients found the 'change' message more 'reassuring than closure'.
However, when questioned at last Tuesday’s Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) Council Health and Social Care Policy and Accountability Committee (PAC) health officials from the CCG, including chair Dr Tim Spicer and vice-chair Dr Susan McGoldrick, told the committee that clinicians would have preferred to have used the word ‘closure’ but took advice from M&C Saatchi whom they described as their ‘professionals in public relations’.
H&F Council Leader, Cllr Stephen Cowan, said; "Using the word 'change' rather than ‘closed’ appeared to be deliberately designed to distract the public from being upset or concerned about the closure of the A&Es rather than informing them of what was happening and what was in the best interests for them and their loved ones should they ever need accident or emergency health care services."
He added that "this is negligent as the obvious and likely confusion of this approach has a clear potential to cost lives".
The Health and Social Care PAC won assurances that the full brief given to M&C Saatchi would be sent to them, as would the detailed communications outcomes M&C Saatchi had been commissioned to deliver.
Cllr Cowan said: "Saying something will change instead of closing may be more reassuring, but then there is that rather gigantic problem that it is not true. This is a highly misleading campaign George Orwell's Ministry of Truth would have been proud of. It will add to what health officials admit is already a high level of confusion about the differences between urgent care clinics and A&Es."
That likely confusion was demonstrated during H&F’s Health and Social Care PAC meeting when Dr. Mark Spencer, the Medical Director for Shaping A Healthier Future responded to questions about the choices a person might have in deciding whether to go to a proper class 1 A&E or an Urgent Care Clinic if they thought they, or a loved one, might be suffering possible symptoms of a serious medical condition such as meningitis or an possible emergency such as chest pains. Dr. Spicer asserted that the "recommendation would always be to go to an accident & emergency department." However, Sarah Garrett, a Communications Consultant for H&F Clinical Commissioning Group underlined the difficulty in an individual making that choice when she later told the PAC meeting "People don’t understand the difference between an A&E and an urgent care centre".
Cllr Cowan said; "We are against the closure of this A&E but this is also all very insightful into how these people are making decisions about our NHS. Health officials and M&C Saatchi need to come clean and explain why they’ve taken this Orwellian approach. They claim it is to inform local residents but use deliberately misleading language which is against the better judgement of clinicians and in a campaign being run over the school summer holidays when many people will be away.
"Providing people with an understanding of the right place to go in an accident or emergency should be the highest priority with this £400,000 tax-payer-funded communications campaign. Having looked at the evidence and heard their explanations, that is clearly not their goal. This demonstrates another serious failure of judgement and one that they will be held accountable for as our campaign to save our hospitals carries on".
On Thursday, two days after H&F’s Health and Social Care PAC, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust published board papers which confirmed their proposals to demolish Charing Cross hospital and replace it with a GP-led health centre which would see:
• Closure of A&E services to be replaced with an Urgent Care Centre
• Loss of 336 acute beds and all acute surgery
• Proposal to sell of the majority of Charing Cross Hospital site.
Health officials argue that closing A&Es and centralising services at fewer hospitals will improve patient care.
However Cllr Cowan said: "What we are seeing nationally within the NHS is hugely confusing and misleading for residents. They believe that they can take away vast swathes of emergency facilities without people noticing.
"This council will not allow that to happen. We will expose what is going on at every stage and use all our influence and powers to block future plans to demolish Charing Cross Hospital and take away its emergency services."
View the video of the discussion on local A&E closures (YouTube)» (opens new window)
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
The biggest hospital closure programme in NHS history is being decided in Hammersmith this Wednesday
Come and join the protest and help save our NHS
On Thursday night Imperial Healthcare Trust, which runs Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary’s Hospitals, published details of their plans for the three sites. It amounts to the biggest hospital closure programme in the history of the NHS.
This Wednesday the decision will be approved by the Imperial Board when they meet at Hammersmith Hospital.
Join the protest outside the main entrance to Hammersmith Hospital in Du Cane Road, W12 0HS, from 9am this Wednesday the 30th of July – come along to have your say on our local NHS. If you can, stay for the Board meeting, which is held in public and will make the decisions. Ask for directions to the Oak Suite, W12 Conference Centre, Hammersmith Hospital.
These are the proposals the Board meeting will consider:
- Hammersmith and Central Middlesex A&Es will close on 10 September. 22,000 Hammersmith patients a year will be told to attend St Mary’s Paddington despite fears this will ‘compromise performance’
- Plans to demolish Charing Cross Hospital, sell 55% of site and reduce space by more than 75%
- Inpatient beds at Charing Cross would reduce from 360 to just 24. Charing Cross would become a ‘local hospital’ providing GP and treatment services and day surgery
- A&E services would ‘move out’ of Charing Cross, contrary to a personal assurance from the Secretary of State that it would ‘continue to offer an A&E service’
- All major emergency services to go from Charing Cross including neurosurgery, stroke, specialist medicine, A&E, acute surgery, urology, complex ENT and breast.
- Over the three main Imperial sites there would be a net loss of 170 beds
- Plans to cut £207m from the budget in next five years, on top of £127m cut in last three. One third of turnover of £979m
- 45% of St Mary’s Paddington site and all of Western Eye Hospital also for sale. Site disposals to raise total of £270m
- There will be no public consultation on the plans for Charing Cross and St Mary’s
- Public information on the closure of Hammersmith and Central Middlesex A&E has not started, six weeks before closure, but £300,000 has been paid to PR consultants, including £55,000 to M&C Saatchi
- Leaflets to be distributed in west London in August say the A&Es are ‘changing’ not closing
In February 2013 plans to sell the whole Charing Cross site save for a clinic on 3% of the land were met with outrage and the local NHS promised to go away and think again. Their original timetable – to report back by October last year – slipped month by month and Imperial took over the lead in developing plans. At the end of October Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt confirmed his wish to close Hammersmith A&E but said Charing Cross would ‘continue to offer an A&E service’. However the situation remained very unclear and the truth was held back in part to help the Conservatives in the local elections in May.
Now we have the final proposals and they are worse than we were recently led to believe. Charing Cross will close as a major hospital. It will be reduced to a primary care centre with some day surgery and treatment services. This is simply unacceptable to many west Londoners and we are going to keep fighting to save Charing Cross which has been a landmark London hospital for almost 200 years.
More than half the Charing Cross site will be sold, the existing hospital demolished and new building will provide less than a quarter of the current floor space. All consultant emergency services will close or go elsewhere. The present 360 inpatient beds will fall to just 24. The biggest betrayal is the loss of the A&E. Far from continuing ‘to offer an A&E service’ as Hunt promised, Imperial confirm that A&E will ‘move out’ of Charing Cross under their plans leaving ‘an emergency service appropriate for a local hospital’. This means an urgent care centre staffed by GPs and nurses.
The immediate crisis is the closure of the two A&Es at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex. Imperial admit that there is a risk that this will ‘compromise performance against the 4 hour waiting time standard’. A&Es are already at capacity and the thought that two will close immediately and another two – Charing Cross and Ealing – within the next few years is grotesque. Development is at an all-time high with the population expected to grow by 10% in the next ten years.
22,000 people attend Hammersmith A&E every year, mainly from White City, East Acton and North Kensington, some of the poorest areas of London with the worst health outcomes. Now they must either put up with a second-class service or make the difficult journey to St Mary’s Paddington where A&E waiting times already breach the four hour standard.
To suggest that services are ‘changing’ rather than closing is misleading and dangerous. This closure programme, the biggest in NHS history, has been subject to spin and concealment by the local NHS and the Government throughout. The A&E closures at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex Hospitals were announced the day after the local elections.
Despite a £300,000 PR spend, two months later no publicity has been undertaken. Now my constituents are being insulted by disingenuous nonsense about ‘changing’ and ‘transforming’ when the services are simply being shut down. The result could be that people will continue to go to Hammersmith Hospital after 10 September believing there is an A&E on site, with the possible tragic consequences we have seen at Chase Farm.
With a further £207m to save from their budget over the next five years on top of £127m saved in the past three these are cost-driven decisions and the blame for them lies with the Coalition Government and the Health Secretary.
The destruction of the NHS in Hammersmith & Fulham is the most serious challenge facing us. Please pass this on to your family, friends and neighbours and please let me know your views to I can represent them locally and in Parliament. The Save our Hospitals campaign will continue to fight - why not join them?
I believe we can make the Government- or if not this one the next - think again about the future of Charing Cross.
Monday, 28 July 2014
Angry? Protest against Imperial's plans
Please join us at Hammersmith Hospital entrance this Weds at 9.30. The Board meeting starts at 10 at the W12 Centre on the Hospital site.
Hammersmith Hospital
Du Cane Road, London, W12 0HS
Du Cane Road, London, W12 0HS
Join us Wednesday the 30th of July at Imperial Trust public meeting, 10am
Perhaps you are lucky and have never been unwell, but remember, it happens to us all at some time in our life.
Well on Wednesday the 30th of July the Imperial Trust are having a public meeting to decide the future of Charing Cross Hospital and it is very likely that the decision will be made to close it down. This will be catastrophic for this area that we live in!
Before the last General election, David Cameron promised that the National Health Service would be safe in his hands. Well the NHS is now in Mr. Cameron’s hands and he is proceeding with the biggest hospital closure program in the history of the NHS. And these closures will leave West London with a greatly reduce number of hospitals and A & E departments at a time when the present number can barely cope.
If you want to protect your future healthcare and the healthcare of your loved ones, then please come to this meeting, it is our last chance to exert any influence before they make their final decision.
Hammersmith Hospital
Du Cane Road, London, W12 0HS
Response to Andrew Slaughter MP’s comments on the Trust’s clinical strategy - 25 July 2014
Responding to comments by Andy Slaughter MP on service changes at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Trust chief executive Dr Tracey Batten said:
“A draft strategy setting out how we want to develop our services to meet changing health needs will be presented to the Trust board on 30 July. The draft clinical strategy was posted on the Trust website on Thursday along with other board papers.
A foreword to the draft clinical strategy (see Notes to editors), signed by myself and the Trust’s most senior medical and nursing leads, makes clear that the status quo is not an option if the trust is to respond to changing health needs and continue to provide high quality care.
The draft clinical strategy focuses on transforming services through the implementation of new models of care to ensure our services achieve the best outcomes, are joined up, tailored to individual needs and provide an excellent patient experience. It also reflects the wider service change programme for north west London, Shaping a healthier future. This programme, led by local commissioners, was approved by the Secretary of State for Health in October 2013 following a full public consultation and a review by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. Everything in our draft clinical strategy is in line with Shaping a healthier future.”
Clarity on specific comments is as follows:
- We are developing an estates strategy to support the implementation of the clinical strategy. The current Charing Cross Hospital building is intended to be replaced with a £150 million development to be designed for future health needs. If approved by the Trust board on Wednesday, it will be at least one year before central approval and agreement on finances and a further period to complete design work and secure planning permissions. The Trust is publicly committed to major and ongoing engagement with local communities to work up the plans.
- If the finances are approved centrally, there will be new, purpose-built facilities at Charing Cross and St Mary’s. The design will make better use of the estate and so will free up some land to be sold to help fund the redevelopment.
- The draft clinical strategy is clear that there will be a continued 24/7 emergency service at Charing Cross Hospital, in line with the Secretary of State’s decision. The strategy states that “we are awaiting further guidance from NHS England on a national strategy to help guide the development of emergency services appropriate for a local hospital”.
- The budget for inpatient hospital care has to reduce – and can be reduced –so we can provide more and better care out of hospital and focus more on keeping people healthier. Currently, in north west London, a fifth of over 75s end up back in hospital as emergencies within 28 days of discharge from hospital. This is bad for patients and bad for the NHS, but it can be addressed through more joined up care and more tailored care, closer to home.
- A major public information campaign to raise awareness of the closure of Hammersmith A&E and the continued provision of a 24/7 urgent care service has been developed. The key messages for the campaign have been developed through public research and testing. Some aspects of the campaign have already begun, including a series of meetings with and letters to GPs and letters to parents via local schools. There is also a programme of meetings and communications with a wide range of community groups. The general public campaign via outdoor and print advertising, door-drop leaflets and media will begin on 28 July. It involves 285,000 leaflets and 312,000 pharmacy bags, putting ads on 30 bus routes, and over 100 poster and billboard sites.
ENDS –
For more information please contact:
For more information please contact:
Saffron Pineger
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust press office
Email: saffron.pineger@imperial.nhs.uk
Tel: 020 3312 1475
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust press office
Email: saffron.pineger@imperial.nhs.uk
Tel: 020 3312 1475
Web: www.imperial.nhs.uk
Twitter: twitter.com/ImperialNHS
RSS feed: www.imperial.nhs.uk/aboutus/news/rss/index.htm
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/Imperialnhs/videos?sort=da&view=u
Twitter: twitter.com/ImperialNHS
RSS feed: www.imperial.nhs.uk/aboutus/news/rss/index.htm
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/Imperialnhs/videos?sort=da&view=u
Notes to editors:
The draft clinical strategy is available at http://www.imperial.nhs.uk/aboutus/ourorganisation/boardmeetings/index.htm
Foreword to draft clinical strategy
The NHS, like other healthcare systems across the developed world, is facing a massive challenge. While continuing to provide excellent urgent and emergency services, we have to transform the way that we care for the vastly increasing number of people with long-term conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, and for our growing frail, elderly population.
The NHS, like other healthcare systems across the developed world, is facing a massive challenge. While continuing to provide excellent urgent and emergency services, we have to transform the way that we care for the vastly increasing number of people with long-term conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, and for our growing frail, elderly population.
Too many people with long-term or multiple conditions are simply not getting the right support. A fifth of over-75s end up back in hospital as emergencies within 28 days of discharge from hospital – this is bad for patients and bad for the NHS.
We believe we can respond to these challenges – but we have to have the right services, in the right place, in the right facilities. Our estate hasn’t had the development it has needed over the past decade or so – a large part of our building stock is now over 100 years old. We have to get it right this time.
This clinical strategy reflects the well-evidenced principles of what good future NHS care will look like. This means more local and integrated services, to improve access and help keep people healthy, and more concentrated specialist services where necessary, to increase quality and safety. We’ve already seen many more lives saved by centralising major trauma, stroke and heart attack centres across the capital, including at our hospitals.
We have had a huge input to this strategy from doctors, nurses and other clinicians and staff across the Trust. We recognise that to develop our strategy further and to implement it successfully, we need to do much more to explain our thinking and to listen and respond to the views and concerns of patients and local communities. And we have to make sure that we have community capacity in place before we reduce inpatient hospital services. But, as clinicians, we are certain that the biggest threat to the NHS – and to the great care we are here to provide – will come if we don’t change to meet new demands.
Dr Tracey Batten, chief executive
Professor Chris Harrison, medical director
Professor Jamil Mayet, divisional director of surgery, cancer and cardiovascular
Mr Steve McManus, chief operating officer
Professor Tim Orchard, divisional director of medicine
Dr Julian Redhead, divisional director of investigative sciences and clinical support
Professor Janice Sigsworth, director of nursing
Mr TG Teoh, divisional director of women’s and children’s
Professor Chris Harrison, medical director
Professor Jamil Mayet, divisional director of surgery, cancer and cardiovascular
Mr Steve McManus, chief operating officer
Professor Tim Orchard, divisional director of medicine
Dr Julian Redhead, divisional director of investigative sciences and clinical support
Professor Janice Sigsworth, director of nursing
Mr TG Teoh, divisional director of women’s and children’s
About Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust comprises Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte’s & Chelsea, St Mary’s and Western Eye hospitals. With more than one million patient contacts each year, it is one of the largest acute Trusts in the country and, in partnership with Imperial College London, is the UK’s first Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC). It has an annual turnover of around £970 million. The Trust was created on 1 October 2007, by merging Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and St Mary's NHS Trust.
Imperial College Healthcare is one of eleven NIHR Biomedical Research Centres. This designation is given to the most outstanding NHS and university research partnerships in the country; leaders in scientific translation and early adopters of new insights in technologies, techniques and treatments for improving health. Imperial College Healthcare has some of the lowest mortality rates in the country according to the Dr Foster Guide – an annual, independent report published 2012.
Imperial College Healthcare is one of eleven NIHR Biomedical Research Centres. This designation is given to the most outstanding NHS and university research partnerships in the country; leaders in scientific translation and early adopters of new insights in technologies, techniques and treatments for improving health. Imperial College Healthcare has some of the lowest mortality rates in the country according to the Dr Foster Guide – an annual, independent report published 2012.
About Imperial Academic Health Science Centre
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London formed a unique partnership and together they became the UK's first AHSC. On 9 March 2009, the Trust and College received official recognition as an AHSC from the UK government. An AHSC is a partnership between a healthcare provider and a university. The vision of the AHSC is to vastly improve the quality of life our patients and populations by taking scientific discoveries and translating them into new therapies and techniques and bringing them into an NHS setting in as quick a timeframe as possible.
About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges
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