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Jacky's Washington NHS Speech
(posted -
14/11/11)
Peter Fisher - The Guardian 3rd
May 2011
What he and his colleagues in Bexley have been
doing over the past few years is being replicated in many other parts
of the country, showing that we do not need this costly and disruptive
upheaval to achieve it. In the Response
column (29th April) Dr Howard Stoate* sets the record straight showing
that David Cameron was wrong, as well as patronizing, at PMQ. However
Dr Stoate’s explanation goes much further in undermining the
justification for the Health and Social Care Bill, which is claimed to
be that of giving a bigger role for clinicians in deciding the services
which should be provided.
The real reason for the Bill is to allow unfettered access for the private sector, turning what is now an integrated service into one where competition on a commercial basis is the driving force.
There is no evidence that this is what the people of this country want so the Bill must be opposed, not cosmetically adjusted, by all who value the concept of a National Health Service.
*Howard Stoate’s comments:
“Although we in Bexley are leading the way in many respects, GPs in the borough do not work in isolation, taking on responsibility for every facet of patient care and commissioning. In fact, they are becoming more effective at being the patient’s representative – working with a range of other professionals to ensure services are the best they can be. GPs are increasingly becoming involved in discussing budgets, local healthcare needs, service planning and delivery – resulting in dramatic improvements in services as antiquated ways of working are modernised.”
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Bob Woodd Walker – Essex County Standard 14th January 2011
Mark Aitken – Essex County Standard 14th January 2011
Bob Woodd Walker – Essex County Standard 14th January 2011
You report the
'birth' of Anglian Community Enterprise with a budget of £50million.
"ACE will be driven by market forces." "It will be run along the lines
of a business." Your photo is of the signing of a "business transfer
agreement."
Naturally we want the NHS to be run efficiently, but the risk is that cheapness may be the only criterion for choosing contracts; many other factors should be taken into account. Indeed the whole bureaucratic rigmarole of contracting, often difficult and arbitary to quantify, is in itself very costly. Moreover, we do not want various 'providers' to supply services independently and uncoordinatedly. For example, the Oaks Hospital is said to be enlarging to take on more NHS work - at a profit - so why not increase facilities at the General instead? Earlier you reported that a great many expensive medicines were being returned unused to pharmacists who then arranged for their destruction. This waste is not wholly the responsibility of the patients, for it is the Regulations which quite unnecessarily insist on this, as they do with all the perfectly good food which is buried or composted.
****************************Naturally we want the NHS to be run efficiently, but the risk is that cheapness may be the only criterion for choosing contracts; many other factors should be taken into account. Indeed the whole bureaucratic rigmarole of contracting, often difficult and arbitary to quantify, is in itself very costly. Moreover, we do not want various 'providers' to supply services independently and uncoordinatedly. For example, the Oaks Hospital is said to be enlarging to take on more NHS work - at a profit - so why not increase facilities at the General instead? Earlier you reported that a great many expensive medicines were being returned unused to pharmacists who then arranged for their destruction. This waste is not wholly the responsibility of the patients, for it is the Regulations which quite unnecessarily insist on this, as they do with all the perfectly good food which is buried or composted.
Mark Aitken – Essex County Standard 14th January 2011
Anglian Community
Enterprise’s (ACE) plans to help more people to lead healthier lives
sounds exciting, but no matter how keenly you follow a healthy
lifestyle none of us are going to live for ever. Sooner or later we
will find ourselves in need of hospital treatment and for those living
in and around Colchester we want our local hospital to have the
expertise and infrastructure to deal with those needs. Unfortunately
our hospital service in Colchester has been blighted by over 40 years
of dithering, compromise and indecision. This was compounded when our
previous Chief Executive threw in the towel claiming that the planned
centralisation and modernisation building project was unaffordable. The
proper approach should have been to renegotiate the project. That is
what our neighbours have done. Shining examples are the new state of
the art Broomfield Hospital, Ipswich’s Garrett Anderson Centre and
Peterborough’s brand new hospital.
Our recently opened semi-prefabricated new Children’s facility with a brand new surgical facility on the first floor are eye-catching, but did we need more Paediatric beds when their average bed occupancy is less than 50%, as opposed to our adult medical wards which routinely overspill into a ward in the gynaecology block? And was the new surgical ward just a “replacement” for one of the existing surgical wards or part of a plan to poach patients requiring potentially lucrative surgical procedures from neighbouring districts?
In many respects Colchester’s Hospital Executives have merely been following the mantra ordained by Parliament. This is the mantra that worships commercialism, competition, and profit. The recent White Paper makes it abundantly clear that the present administration has no intention of changing course. But, is that what you really want? Have our local MPs signed up to this nonsense or will they exercise their right to vote with your votes and their consciences or just bend under the whip? There is an alternative approach. If we were to follow the alleged parliamentary aspiration to devolve healthcare decision making to local communities then we could define our own priorities and maybe a body like ACE could play a part in that. Currently about £20bn is spent annually on the bureaucratic machinations of bodies like Monitor, the Healthcare Commission and the Strategic Health Authorities. Do we really need them? Of course not. In Colchester we won’t go to the top of the league by blocking our own goal mouth. We need strikers who can hammer the ball into the net at the other end of the pitch. Are our MPs up for it?
Our recently opened semi-prefabricated new Children’s facility with a brand new surgical facility on the first floor are eye-catching, but did we need more Paediatric beds when their average bed occupancy is less than 50%, as opposed to our adult medical wards which routinely overspill into a ward in the gynaecology block? And was the new surgical ward just a “replacement” for one of the existing surgical wards or part of a plan to poach patients requiring potentially lucrative surgical procedures from neighbouring districts?
In many respects Colchester’s Hospital Executives have merely been following the mantra ordained by Parliament. This is the mantra that worships commercialism, competition, and profit. The recent White Paper makes it abundantly clear that the present administration has no intention of changing course. But, is that what you really want? Have our local MPs signed up to this nonsense or will they exercise their right to vote with your votes and their consciences or just bend under the whip? There is an alternative approach. If we were to follow the alleged parliamentary aspiration to devolve healthcare decision making to local communities then we could define our own priorities and maybe a body like ACE could play a part in that. Currently about £20bn is spent annually on the bureaucratic machinations of bodies like Monitor, the Healthcare Commission and the Strategic Health Authorities. Do we really need them? Of course not. In Colchester we won’t go to the top of the league by blocking our own goal mouth. We need strikers who can hammer the ball into the net at the other end of the pitch. Are our MPs up for it?