THINK...AND VOTE FOR THE NHS

BRUTAL CUTS

HOSPITALS YES – HEALTH CUTS NO

NHS campaigners from Save Our Hospitals and from Ealing Save Our NHS held a lively lunchtime rally in Lyric Square Hammersmith on Saturday May 4^th to celebrate the saving of Charing Cross and Ealing Hospitals as major acute hospitals.

However, speakers at the rally who, in addition to campaigners from Hammersmith and Ealing included MP Andy Slaughter and Steve Cowan leader of H&F Council, condemned the scandalous plans by H&F health bosses to cut more than £30m in this financial year from the local health budget.

Initially people in the borough are facing cuts to dementia services, stroke provision, cardiology services, dermatology services and gynaecology services in the community. It is also proposed that financial savings will be made by cutting back night hours from Hammersmith Hospital Urgent Care Centre and by cutting medical hubs from the current three to 2 or even 1. And, on top of all this, GP after hours funding is being cut. The rally condemned these cuts as entirely unacceptable attacks on health provision.

Mention was also made of the digital service, Babylon GP at Hand which campaigners have just learned is taking out more than £20m and rising from local health budgets, thus undermining GP and other health services in the borough.

On a bright afternoon passers-by listened to speakers, took leaflets, signed petitions and engaged with campaigners. In particular passers-by enjoyed campaigners singing and a lively improvised communal dance. The high point was a die-in staged by SOH campaigners – many bloody and bandaged - demonstrating the damaging effects to our health were these cuts to go ahead.

You can help save the urgent care centre at Hammersmith Hospital - but you need to act now

It's where you can get vital NHS treatment for things that aren't life threatening

By

Julia GregoryLocal Democracy Reporter

• 15:27, 5 FEB 2019
  
• There's a chance to have your say before the NHS closes the unit to try to save money (Image: Getty images)
There are plans to close an "underused" out of hours  urgent care centre in Hammersmith .
It's where you can go 24-hours-a-day to be seen urgently if your illness is not life threatening.
And, if you have strong views on that, now is the time to speak up.
Residents are to be asked what they think - there are six weeks to have a say.
The closure is one of several options which will be included in a consultation this month as the cash- strapped Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group looks to save money.
It estimates that shutting one of  its two urgent care centres which are open overnight from 8pm to 8am, reducing weekend plus GP appointments from one practice to three and cutting 155 extended hours GP appointments a week, could save £1m a year.
It said it had no plans to close the urgent care centre at Charing Cross Hospital, or reduce its hours from 2am to 6am.

So, how under-used is it?

An average of seven patients are seen at the urgent care centre at Hammersmith Hospital on any night.
Of those, an average of only two need emergency or urgent care, according to the CCG.
It said the highest number of people ever turning up between midnight and 8am was 18.
So it's up and down.
But that's still a lot of people.
In 2017/18, nearly 33,000 people visited, with 47,000 patients turning up at Charing Cross, which has seen a maximum of 20 people during the midnight to 8am slot.

Now the consultation begins

The CCG has already talked to Healthwatch about the best way to consult residents about the options.
MD Janet Cree told Hammersmith and Fulham’s health and well-being board that it was not practical to send letters to every patient. That data is not available.
It has already staged a series of pre-consultation events and discussed ways it will stage the formal consultation.
The CCG’s  co-vice chair, Vanessa Andreae, said patients commented at last year’s pre-consultation events that "they were not always aware of what’s available. Having a single location could reduce that complexity".
She added many of the appointments were filled by the practices’ patients.
Ms Cree said: "There is nothing determined until we get that feedback."

Have your say

Councillor Ben Coleman, who is Cabinet member for health and adult social care urged residents to respond.
The Labour politician said:"Our local NHS is under attack from government funding cuts. Almost 50 people attend Hammersmith Hospital's Urgent Care Centre overnight each week and nearly one in three of these requires urgent or emergency treatment.
"This consultation could lead to the service being closed. I urge residents to respond."
The consultation will last six weeks.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/you-can-help-save-urgent-15783299

Hammersmith and Fulham has to make £44 million cuts in health spending

Health campaigners are demanding to know exactly what will be cut and when

The CCG buys in the health care needed in Hammersmith and Fulham but campaigners fear many services will have to be cut (Image: BrianAJackson / Getty Images)

One of management groups that buys in health care for people across huge areas of West London is going to have to make savings of some £44 million, but won't yet tell people what services are to be cut.

Health campaigners have pledged to keep asking for more details about the "eye-watering" savings Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group is facing over the next two years.

Merril Hammer from health group Save Our Hospitals, has demanded the CCG open up and share information about ways it will save money.

She told its governing body meeting "to date there have been no detailed reports on what  savings have been made in the current financial year and on what services have been affected in what way?"

She asked when the public will be consulted about the proposed £17m savings the CCG needs to make this financial year and the further £27m in 2019/20.

Janet Cree, the CCG’s managing director said there are plans to  "engage" with the public on January 29.

Paul Brown, the chief financial officer of North West London CCGs said it has to consult on proposals such as closing the Hammersmith urgent care centre which could save £359,000 a year.

He said there were also contracts which are still running, but will be examined.

But Councillor Lucy Richardson, who chairs the council’s health, inclusion and social chair public accounts committee is also pressing for more detail.

She said residents are concerned that services could be downgraded as the CCG has been asked by health NHS England bosses to make "eye-watering" savings of £44m by 2020.

The board meeting was told that there were a range of possibilities, but the “mostly likely position is a total system deficit of £17m and most likely Hammersmith and Fulham will be adrift by £10m,” said Mr Brown.

Demand for the CCG’s services are also 10% higher than its contract.

He said: "We know it’s a challenge, but we keep on working on this problem."

But Ms Hammer said: "People need specifics."

Health campaigner Anne Drinkell also asked how many job losses were likely as the CCG looks to save money.

Chief officer Mark Easton  for the group of CCGs said: “We do not anticipate a specific number of redundancies.”

He said there were a large number of vacancies and it the CCGs have already made savings by collaborating on some staff costs and half the accountable officers for the area.

He said savings will be looking “at reductions in growth”.

He told the LDR service “often these are about alternatives and cheaper options".

https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/hammersmith-fulham-make-44-million-15695596

HAPPY BIRTHDAY - CHARING CROSS 1818-2018

Please join this protest against GP at Hand on Tuesday 24 July 2018 at 5-7pm,

NHS body ‘wastes millions on flawed financial advice’

North West London Clinical Commissioning Group under fire as cost of implementing management consultants’ plan soars to £1.3bn

 Protesters march in London against the NHS financial crisis last February. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty 

A large NHS body has spent millions of pounds on management consultants for a plan designed to save money – but which could cost more than £1bn to put into practice.

Over the past six years, the North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups has spent £66m on 41 different management consulting firms – including the big four: McKinsey, EY, Deloitte and PwC – for a five-year programme to improve healthcare in the area while closing a £1.4bn budget gap forecast by 2021. However, costs have ballooned and the trust said it now needs £1.3bn to implement the programme. It declined to quantify the savings that have been made to date.

It is just one example of the huge sums being spent on management consultants across the health service, despite growing concerns that they do not deliver value for money. Research from the University of Bristol and Warwick Business School suggested higher spending on management consultants made hospital trusts less, rather than more, efficient.

Stephen Cowan, the leader of Hammersmith & Fulham council, said the £66m spent by the NHS in north-west London was “a complete waste of money, evidenced by the fact that they couldn’t produce a business plan”.

One doctor working at Ealing hospital said staff felt completely demoralised by the changes taking place: “First they took cancer care, then they took obstetrics, then they took children’s in-patient services. There is a feeling of planned demolition.”

Management consultants drafted and redrafted the investment case for the trust’s transformation plan, which is now being revised after the regulator said assumptions about reductions in demand for certain services were “counterfactual”. Colin Standfield, a campaigner with Ealing Save our NHS, said: “That is exactly what we said six years ago. We said the numbers don’t work.”

It is a common complaint about management consultants working in the health service. Roger Steer, a former NHS chief executive who reviews NHS plans for local authorities, said: “It’s wishful thinking. You balance the books by assuming that demand can be reduced, then cuts can be justified by the fact that the service won’t be needed in the future.”

He said management consultants were often brought in to give plans a “plausible gloss”. A report by The King’s Fund, a healthcare thinktank, suggested the current wave of plans had “created an industry for management consultants”.

In north-west London, plans continue to be implemented despite the delay in approving the investment case. The first step was to close acute A&E departments at Central Middlesex and Hammersmith hospitals, replacing them with urgent care centres to deal with minor illnesses and injuries. That had a major impact on A&E waiting times in north-west London, which have been consistently worse than the rest of the country ever since.

A spokesperson for North West London Clinical Commissioning Groups said: “Investment in the right expertise has allowed us to redesign services and make real improvements to the care we provide our 2 million residents. Over the last three years we have significantly reduced our spend on consultancy.”

Peter Spilsbury, director of the Strategy Unit, an internal NHS consultancy, said individual trusts are also not sharing informationabout projects, so management consultants can resell their work to different parts of the health service.

He contrasted that with the work of the Strategy Unit. “The knowledge developed stays in the NHS. When we produce knowledge, we publish it whenever we can. If we’ve done a piece of work for one NHS client, we don’t sell it again.”

The lack of transparency has a further impact on staff morale. The doctor at Ealing hospital said: “Everybody feels things are done behind their back with ulterior motives, in a confrontational rather than cooperative way.

“Clearly we are in terrible trouble. When we look back at this period of austerity, I think we are going to see this in the statistics of the healthcare indicators. I’m sure that it will show up.”

• This article was amended on 21 July 2018 to remove incorrect references to the London North West NHS trust.
• The Guardian
• https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/21/nhs-trust-wastes-million-on-flawed-financial-advice-london-north-west

CELEBRATE AND DEMONSTRATE #OurNHS70

OUR NHS - LET'S CELEBRATE

Revealed: The huge financial pressures facing two west London hospitals

The trust that runs Charing Cross Hospital and St Mary's Hospital is planning to make £48 million in savings in the coming financial year

The trust that runs Charing Cross Hospital is under pressure to make millions of pounds of savings to overcome a £20.6 million deficit.

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is planning to make £48 million in savings for the coming financial year and will be able to access a portion of an NHS Improvement fund to help with its budget.

However, to be eligible for the money Imperial's hospitals must meet four-hour A&E waiting time targets 95 per cent of the time; a requirement labelled "illogical" by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The trust's healthcare facilities include St Mary's Hospital, in Paddington, and Charing Cross Hospital, in Hammersmith, which both have A&E departments the trust is expanding.

Charing Cross Hospital (Image: Sunday Mirror)

A campaign is under way to "Save Charing Cross Hospital" from an eventual proposed partial demolition.

Imperial says the cost improvement plan would not affect its £7.2m investment in the Charing Cross A&E redevelopment, due for completion by next June.

At its board meeting last week the trust unveiled a £20.6m deficit before funding from the NHS Improvement, Sustainability and Transformation Fund (STF) for the new financial year is taken into account.

The trust is optimistic about successfully implementing its cost improvement plan, a spokeswoman said.

"We expect to meet our financial target, as we have for the past two years, despite significant external cost pressures." she added.

The goals it has set itself gives it access to £34.2m from the STF pool.

The size of its slice from the STF is two-thirds contingent on the trust meeting its financial targets, and one-third on meeting the A&E targets.

As of this April, it was meeting the A&E target 84.6 per cent of the time.

It did not achieve it in the last financial year either, meaning it missed out on a £6.2m portion of the STF.

In its report to the board, the trust described increased demand on its emergency services, more ambulance and daily trauma patients at St Mary's, and bed pressures.

The Government launched the £1.8 billion STF pool in its 2015 spending review.

A share of the cash is contingent on providers achieving financial and performance targets.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last March told providers they must take action to meet the A&E targets. NHS England and NHS Improvement then tagged the targets to its STF criteria.

BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said this placed a burden on "overstretched" trusts.

"It is illogical and counter-productive that funding to support and improve hospital services should come with the precondition to achieve government targets first," he said.

"The government must recognise that with pressure on NHS services increasing year-on-year and national A&E waiting times consistently falling below the 95 per cent target, the problem lies not in the financial management of individual trusts but rather in years of chronic underinvestment."

Imperial did achieve its financial targets against a much smaller deficit plan in the last financial year, despite missing out on the STF portion for A&E targets.

Its planned £4.5m deficit benefited from a winter pressures top-up of £2.5m, with the trust ending 2017/18 with a £3m surplus.

The trust had set itself a cost improvement plan of £54.4m in 2017/18, but missed that target by £11.3m, which it partly blamed on winter pressures.

It made savings last year through clinical income, including from private patients, and also from saving on drugs, procurement and facilities, and reducing staffing costs like overtime and agency temps.

It planned to make similar savings this financial year, the spokeswoman said.

The trust planned to move patients through its urgent and emergency pathways "as effectively, as quickly and as safely as possible," its spokeswoman said.

Imperial's programme includes offering better alternatives to hospital admission, improving emergency department processes, specialist decisions and pathways, as well as bed management, ward and discharge processes.

Charing Cross Hospital's £7.2 million A&E expansion plans

• Increase the number of rooms in the urgent care centre from seven to nine.

• Increase the number of "majors" cubicles in the emergency department from 12 to 15.

• Increase the number of resuscitation bays in the emergency department from five to eight.

• Create two dedicated mental health rooms.

• Expand capacity for ambulatory emergency care, with same-day consultant review for patients with urgent or emergency health problems without the need for hospital admission.

By

Talia Shadwell   Get West London

• 17:33, 30 MAY 2018
• UPDATED17:36, 30 MAY 2018
• • https://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/revealed-huge-financial-pressures-facing-14725929

PHOTOS and VIDEOS - (H&F) Council Annual Meeting 23/05/2018

Well Done Everyone

Save Our Hospitals certainly succeeded in making sure that defending our NHS - especially maintaining Charing Cross & Ealing as major, acute hospitals were important election issues. SOH distributed around 30,000 leaflets in all kinds of weather with many supporters putting in hours at schools, hospitals, markets and tube stations. It paid off - both councils have been given a clear public mandate to continue to fight to stop the closure of local hospital beds and services and are in a strong position to challenge government cuts & closures that have no public support.

Here's the results:

H&F - Labour increase their majority Labour 39 Conservatives 11

Ealing - Labour increase their majority Labour 57 Conservative 8 Lib Dem 4

The New Mayor of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham Cllr Daryl Brown with her deputy Cllr Mercy Umeh

The parting Mayor of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham Councillor Michael Cartwright  

Councillor Zarar Qayyum

Councillor PJ Murphy 

​ Councillor Rebecca Harvey and Councillor Matt Uberoi

​ Councillor Rowan Ree and Councillor Rachel Leighton

Parting Mayor of H&F Council Cllr Michael Cartwright with Cllr Sharon Holder  

The Change We'll Bring Together  

H&F Councillor​,​ Bora Kwon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKHypMK9R9s


What's the TRUTH about Charing Cross Hospital?

H&F Councillor, Max Schmid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLub3P5s3Is