From SoH (Save Our Hospitals)
Plans to slash NHS jobs and services have been developed in
secret by NHS bureaucrats and only been uncovered thanks to a Freedom of
Information request by a Brent health campaigner.
This revealed the NW London
Delivery Plan for the STP Oct 16 labelled "strictly
confidential not for wider circulation" and unseen even by some of the
councils involved.
The plans include
- The loss of 3,658 NHS jobs in NW London next year 17/18 - rising to 7753 job losses by 20/21
- Almost 50,000 planned admissions and 222,370 outpatient appointments cut by 20/21. Already patient waiting times for planned operations are at record levels - these plans will only make things much, much worse.
- The loss of 500 - 600 hospital beds with the closure of Charing Cross and Ealing as major acute hospitals
- A reduction in A&E attendances by 64175 in the next 5 years.
More very ill patients have arrived at the remaining
A&Es in NW London this year than ever before - there is NO evidence that
there will not be a need for these departments and acute beds in the future.
Merril Hammer, Chair of Save Our Hospitals, said ‘These plans threaten
patients' lives. We need more beds and more staff, not ongoing cuts.’
The cost of planning this massive cuts and closure
programme is spiralling out of control with many millions pocketed by private
management consultants.
Faced with this crazy set of damaging proposals for NW London's
health services it's no wonder Tracey Batten Chief Executive of Imperial NHS
Trust (and the highest paid NHS CEO in London) resigned yesterday. Dr
Batten is leaving her £340k job at Imperial to return to Australia. Imperial
controls 5 hospitals across NW London. As Merril Hammer also said ‘Our campaign
fears that Imperial management will spend months looking for a new CEO when
they should be tackling the unprecedented A&E, bed capacity and treatment
crises.’
Sources:
Re Jobs
STP Do Something Summary Appendix A Xcel spreadsheet plan for job losses
of 7753 by 20 - 21
From 48258 now,
losing 3658 by 17/18,
5222 by 18/19,
6592 by 19/20,
7753 by 20/21
Re Outpatients
STP Do Something Summary Appendix A Xcel spreadsheet
Cut by 222,370 by 20/21
Re Elective Admissions
STP Do Something Summary Appendix A XCel spreadsheet
Cut by 34,437 by 20/21
Re Non Elective Admissions
Source NW London Delivery Plan for the STP Oct 16 p8
Cut by 64175 by 20/21
RE Costs
Source App A Excel spreadsheet Investment requirements tab:
Re non-recurring revenue costs now up to £303m on top of £845m of gross
capital costs up to 20/21.
3 comments:
This is just plain and simply scary. At a time when the local population is being expanded so dramatically it effectively means that the NHS will effectively no longer exist for much of the population. It is already in crisis now.
I wonder if this is some Machiavellian plan to reduce the population.
This reminds me so much of a review of the Inland Revenue's "Enforcement Office" (which dealt with the more complex cases of tax collection) in the late 1990's.
The then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, was continuing the previous Tory Government's policy of seeking "efficiency savings". The person carrying out the review had been told that the Chancellor expected 25% savings, and after a thorough assessment of the working of this I.R. unit, reported that staff should be cut by 25%.
A year later, staff had been cut by 25%, but the workload of the office had increased by 50%, so the remaining staff were having to try and cope with double the work that they previously had. As you can imagine, this meant that tax collection on the complex cases was less efficient than before!
Public services need to be properly supported, both financially and by giving them the trained staff they need to provide those services. If demand increases, the resources need to be increased, not cut. If that means that both the basic and top rates of tax need to be increased to pay for the services that we want and need, then that is what should be done.
Philip.
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