12 HOUR VIGIL on 20th September 2008. Over 400 signatures collected.

12 HOUR VIGIL on 20th September 2008. Over 400 signatures collected.
photo copyright News Shopper.

Wednesday 26 March 2008

Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) Maternity Unit closed.

Following an investigation by Independents to save Queen Mary's Hospital it was discovered that the Maternity Unit at the PRUH, Farnborough was closed for the whole of Wednesday (day and night) and the following Thursday [12th and 13th March]. This was due to what the hospital called "high activity".

Expectant mothers due to give birth at the PRUH were told to go, or diverted, to Lewisham, Darent Valley or Queen Mary's Hospital.

Commenting on this discovery John Hemming-Clark - who is standing in the London Assembly elections in May for the Bexley & Bromley Constituency - said,

"This is simply unbelievable and unacceptable. The "A Picture of Health" consultation report confirms Maternity National Service Framework (2004) and the DoE's Maternity Matters that maternity services should be "easier to access" and "delivered closer to people's homes". However, before the consultation has even finished, patients are being kept out of one of the Maternity Units that, it is planned, will remain after the consultation. The PRUH is supposed to be taking on some of the 3,000 expectant mothers per year that present to Queen Mary's. Instead, at present, it's the other way round with Queen Mary's bailing out the PRUH.

If the consultation report is approved, where are the future patients of the PRUH going to have their babies? In the kitchens?"

Monday 17 March 2008

Consultation document already dead in the water

I attended - as an observer - a meeting of the Joint Committee of PCTs held on 3rd March where it was stated that 2,606 responses had been made to the A Picture of Health questionnaire.

I estimate that, bearing in mind that

1. the consultation period is already two thirds of its way through, and
2. most responses are received early on in a process

the total number of responses at the end of the review will not exceed more than about 4,000.

We are talking about the future health needs of more than a million people. 760,000 documents have been sent out which means a response of around 0.5%. A "response" includes not only a completed questionnaire but also:

1. a partially completed questionnaire,
2. just a letter, or even
3. just an answerphone message!

As such, despite Gill Galliano, Chief Executive of Lewisham PCT stating that response rates are "so far very positive" the fact of the matter is that no academic institution would accept such a minuscule response rate as a valid sample from which to draw any conclusions whatsoever.

As such, this unnecessary, expensive and bureaucratic process is already dead in the water.

Monday 10 March 2008

Consultation Report a Sham

I have written to A Picture of Health to complain that none of the 3 "short list" options presented to local residents includes retaining Queen Mary's A & E.

In the full report 23 "long list" options were developed in which 70% proposed keeping Queen Mary's as a fully admitting hospital (13 options) or a medically admitting hospital (3). However, by the time that these 23 options had been mysteriously whittled down to 3, not one of the 16 options to have Queen Mary's as a fully or medically admitting hospital had been retained. The 3 short list options all include Queen Mary's as a borough hospital, the lowest type of hospital.

The final 3 options were selected and articulated by the NHS behind closed doors and has left the public with what amounts to Hobson's choice. None of the 3 options provide for a fully functioning A & E, non-surgical emergencies, emergency and complex surgery, trauma surgery, children's services - inpatients, assessment and treatment, doctor-led maternity unit with intensive care for babies, or midwife-led birthing unit.

In the questionnaire the residents of the Boroughs of Bexley and Bromley are permitted to select "none of these [3] options", having been told in the consultation report that to leave things as they are "is not an option"!

The consultation report is a sham, asking for residents to respond to closed questions relating to limited options preselected by NHS bureaucrats.

Thursday 6 March 2008

A midwife speaks

Over 1,500 took part in a march through Sidcup on Saturday 1st March (my birthday!) to protest at the planned closures at Queen Mary's Hospital.

The focus has so far been on the loss of accident and emergency facilities at Queen Mary's, but just as important is the loss of maternity facilities at the hospital. Here a midwife speaks to Bromley Times about the impact closures at Queen Mary's will have on the PRU at Farnborough:

"I am here [on the march] because I am livid. "I am worried because we don't have the capacity at the Princess Royal. They have just spent a lot of money only last year on a midwifery-led unit at Queen Mary's so what is the point of spending all that money? "I just don't understand the thinking. We just feel they are not looking at how it is. "The journey from here to the Princess Royal can take an hour-and-a-half. "

The maternity unit at the Princess Royal is very stretched at the moment. It is very stressful. It is continuous. It is day, night, every day, because of the workload. "There is no way they can expand out. There will still be the same number of staff. "We would just have to manage.

Because of the debt, there is no way we can employ more people. It is just an impossible situation." http://www.bromleytimes.co.uk

Wednesday 5 March 2008

A Picture of Health - letter to the Editor

From: Gill Galliano, Chief Executive, Lewisham Primary Care Trust to News Shopper 27th February 2008
Your reader...takes us to task for wasting "time, money and resources on what are clearly half thought-out plans."

A Picture of Health is a vital consultation about NHS services for more than a million residents of Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham.

I'm pleased [the reader] took the opportunity to return a questionnaire - because we do want to know what people think before we make final recommendations.

This is why we printed more than 700,000 booklets. The cost was the equivalent of one second class postage stamp for every resident in the four boroughs - 24p.

Response levels to the consultation are so far very positive.

I am concerned she found the document difficult to understand. I can assure her we are working hard to explain the proposals fully to everyone.

For instance, our full page adverts in the local media explain the options in an at-a-glance style.

and our response.......

The Chief Executive of Lewisham PCT states (letters, 27th February) that the cost of each of the 700,000 A Picture of Health booklets is 24p. Funny that. When I was at the Bexleyheath roadshow I was told by another PCT employee that the cost was 46p each.

The booklets were not personalised and / or delivered by Royal Mail, rather a private delivery company was used. In the words of this same employee, "When you get down to the person who is actually delivering the booklets, some of the individuals are bound to be less than thorough in their delivery methods." I can't argue with that. Several thousand extra booklets had to be redelivered as there were parts of Orpington and Petts Wood that were inexplicably not delivered to first time around. Despite deliveries supposedly being completed in January, I have yet to receive my booklet and at the roadshow I was told by one lady that none of her extended family (five separate addresses) had received theirs either. Only 250 individuals attended the Bexleyheath roadshow (which was advertised in the booklet) which represents only about 0.1% of the population locally. If this is mirrored in the number of responses to the consultation questionnaire then the Chief Executive's comment that "response levels...are so far very positive" begin to appear to be very wide of the mark.
John Hemming-Clark

"We're doing this from a clinical perspective"

I guess if you say it often enough people will begin to believe it. Why else would Simon Robbins, Senior Responsible Officer for A Picture of Health have blurted the above out at the JCPCT meeting on 3rd March? Unfortunately for Mr. Senior Responsible Officer, the people of Bexley and Bromley Boroughs and elsewhere have already seen through the mutterings of the unelected bureaucrats that are attempting to force through this APoH consultation document that many don't even understand.

The focus has been on the loss of A & E but let's for a moment look at children's services. The Healthcare Commission has given Queen Mary's a "good" for services for children, whilst PRU (Farnborough) and Woolwich both only get a "fair". Yet which hospital is going to lose its children's services - inpatients, assessment and treatment, in all 3 options? Answer: Queen Mary's.

"Clinical perspective" indeed. It would be funny if these people weren't actually deciding our children's future health care provision.

Monday 3 March 2008

KEEP OUR N H S PUBLIC

Across England NHS patients and local communities have been linking up with nurses, doctors and other health care workers to meet, march, protest and lobby as they fight to stop further closures and cuts in local NHS services. Beds, wards and even whole hospitals are closing down.

Thousands of health workers' jobs are being axed.But alongside the cuts, an unprecedented process of privatisation is under way: vital services and precious NHS resources are being handed over to the private sector, including companies run for profit for shareholders here and overseas. Now is the time to fight back to Keep Our NHS Public!The campaign was launched in September 2005 and has won the backing of hundreds of senior doctors, academics, health workers and trade union leaders, celebrities, MPs and local campaigners for its launch statement. Now we are inviting all those who support our appeal to JOIN Keep Our NHS Public, and to work with us to build local broad-based campaigns that can stop and roll back the juggernaut of a government policy that is wrecking our NHS.We campaign for our aims and principles.

Chief amongst these:
To inform the public and the media what is happening as a result of the Government's "reform" programme.
To build a broadly based non-party political campaign to prevent further fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS.
To keep our NHS Public. This means funded from taxation, free at the point of use, and provided as a public service by people employed in the NHS and accountable to the public and Parliament. To call for a public debate about the future of the NHS and to halt the further use of the private sector until such a debate is had.
from Keep our NHS Public http://www.keepournhspublic.com