Your report and comment (14th April) on maternity services in the outer south east London NHS is well-timed, coming the week after a three-month consultation ("A Picture of Health") on said services in the area comes to an end. With executives at one of the hospitals that is not targeted to lose its maternity services coming out in favour of the option that reduces four maternity units to two, one has to ask, what's in it for them? With the consultation report stressing, on one hand, the aim of having patient services nearer home, whilst on the other hand recommending losing one or two maternity units, the only way the report suggests that these two "ideals" may both be met is by offering more home births as if that's going to free up staff.
Furthermore, when the, albeit small, percentage of home births become an emergency, and the mother-to-be has to be ferried by ambulance to an A & E department, only to find that they have gone the same way as the maternity units, one is left feeling that the "Picture" is becoming very unhealthy indeed.
12 HOUR VIGIL on 20th September 2008. Over 400 signatures collected.
photo copyright News Shopper.
Thursday 17 April 2008
Letter to Bromley Times, published 17th April
It is unfortunate that Bromley Hospital's NHS Trust should be supporting all three of the A Picture of Health options but nothing short of an obscenity that the Trust directors and chief executive are backing option 3. This is the option that would see both Queen Mary's and Lewisham lose their A & Es. The tragic plane crash at Farnborough recently shows the need to have several A & E's locally and not just two with one under the flight path. Furthermore, Queen Mary's and Lewisham's loss is the Princess Royal's gain as under the controversial payment by results plan the more A & E patients that the PRUH can treat the more they get paid. When one also factors in the aim to reduce the average length of stay within the PRUH by 34% then one gets the distinct feeling that the Trust is putting saving money first and clinical need last.
Candidates who don't live in the Constituency
If you stand in the London Borough elections as a candidate for a council seat, you have to live in the ward in which you stand. Why then do you not have to live in the constituency you hope to represent when standing in the London Assembly elections? It is, after all, also a local government election.
In a rerun of the Bromley & Chislehurst Constituency parliamentary by-election in 2006, neither the Conservative nor the Labour candidate for the Bexley and Bromley constituency live in the area, living instead in Lewisham and Shoreditch respectively. Why should anyone vote for a candidate who does not experience first-hand the concerns of the local residents?
In a rerun of the Bromley & Chislehurst Constituency parliamentary by-election in 2006, neither the Conservative nor the Labour candidate for the Bexley and Bromley constituency live in the area, living instead in Lewisham and Shoreditch respectively. Why should anyone vote for a candidate who does not experience first-hand the concerns of the local residents?
Sunday 6 April 2008
PRUH's future "very healthy"!
Letter to News Shopper 28th March.
Bromley Hospitals' NHS Trust chief executive Ian Wilson, in his interview with Thom Kennedy, makes the assertion that as the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) is to remain a major admitting hospital, under the A Picture of Health (APoH) consultation, then the future for the people of Bromley "is very rosy". That is, until Queen Mary's Hospital starts sending its patients over to him. In stating that "some work is moving out and some is moving in" he is implying quite unjustifiably that the net effect will be nil. In reality, whilst the PRUH will only lose planned inpatients, day and orthopaedic surgery, and children's assessment and treatment services it will have to accommodate a new urgent care centre and a new midwife led birthing unit. It will also have to take over some of Queen Mary's A&E, non-surgical emergency, emergency and complex surgery, trauma surgery, children's services-inpatients, assessment and treatment, and doctor-led maternity unit with intensive care for babies. It will also have to cope with a forecast rise in the local population over the next 10 years by over 90,000!
These new and diverted patients will not all be able to be accommodated by the PRUH and no attempt has been made whatsoever in the APoH consultation to try to address this future needs situation, choosing instead to concentrate on a clinical version of musical chairs.
Bromley Hospitals' NHS Trust chief executive Ian Wilson, in his interview with Thom Kennedy, makes the assertion that as the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) is to remain a major admitting hospital, under the A Picture of Health (APoH) consultation, then the future for the people of Bromley "is very rosy". That is, until Queen Mary's Hospital starts sending its patients over to him. In stating that "some work is moving out and some is moving in" he is implying quite unjustifiably that the net effect will be nil. In reality, whilst the PRUH will only lose planned inpatients, day and orthopaedic surgery, and children's assessment and treatment services it will have to accommodate a new urgent care centre and a new midwife led birthing unit. It will also have to take over some of Queen Mary's A&E, non-surgical emergency, emergency and complex surgery, trauma surgery, children's services-inpatients, assessment and treatment, and doctor-led maternity unit with intensive care for babies. It will also have to cope with a forecast rise in the local population over the next 10 years by over 90,000!
These new and diverted patients will not all be able to be accommodated by the PRUH and no attempt has been made whatsoever in the APoH consultation to try to address this future needs situation, choosing instead to concentrate on a clinical version of musical chairs.
Urgent Care Centres...look and smell...
Letter to Bromley / Bexley Extra, published 4th April.If Ms Liz Butler, chair of Bromley PCT, believes (report 28th March) that urgent care centres, as is proposed for Queen Mary's Hospital, "look and smell" like A&E departments then she is living in cloud cuckoo land. Let me help her out. Around 1/3rd of existing A&E patients - i.e. the ones requiring the most urgent care - would NOT be catered for by an urgent care centre. They would have to travel further for their A&E care with all the inherent risks that that poses. A&E departments are staffed by senior clinicians with intensive care back-up. Urgent care centres on the other hand would be nothing more than glorified GPs, staffed by family doctors, with outpatients and diagnostic facilities but with no emergency back-up.
The picture is beginning to not look very healthy at all.
The picture is beginning to not look very healthy at all.
Fat Cat(s) on Bexley Council
Independents to Save Queen Mary's Hospital has learnt that the Chief Executive of Bexley Council, for the year 2006/7, received a remuneration of £203,000, making him one of only 6 local authority employees in the country to earn over £200,000 and the fifth best remunerated. Another 7 people on Bexley Council earned over £100,000.
Despite the current government target for growth in pay of just 2%, the Chief Executive's remuneration increased by nearly 11% and the Director of Finance's by over 12%.
Commenting on these revelations, John Hemming-Clark said, "saving hospital services goes hand in glove with reducing the excessive burden of taxation. Despite Bexley Council's bragging about its lower than inflation Council Tax settlement for 2007/8 the fact of the matter is that Council Tax has more than doubled over the past 10 years. Bexley Council is making cuts across the board including to grants, funds for meals on wheels, day care and home care which are badly hitting the poor, elderly and vulnerable. At the same time they are paying their Chief Executive a sum which is more than the Prime Minster receives. The increasing burden of taxation is not being used where it is desperately needed, instead it is going to support the excessive pay rises of our senior civic office bureaucrats."
Despite the current government target for growth in pay of just 2%, the Chief Executive's remuneration increased by nearly 11% and the Director of Finance's by over 12%.
Commenting on these revelations, John Hemming-Clark said, "saving hospital services goes hand in glove with reducing the excessive burden of taxation. Despite Bexley Council's bragging about its lower than inflation Council Tax settlement for 2007/8 the fact of the matter is that Council Tax has more than doubled over the past 10 years. Bexley Council is making cuts across the board including to grants, funds for meals on wheels, day care and home care which are badly hitting the poor, elderly and vulnerable. At the same time they are paying their Chief Executive a sum which is more than the Prime Minster receives. The increasing burden of taxation is not being used where it is desperately needed, instead it is going to support the excessive pay rises of our senior civic office bureaucrats."
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