Debate NHS changes in Stonebridge tonight

Dr Mark Spencer, proponent of 'Shaping a Healthier Future' will be debating with Graham Durham, of the Brent Patients Association, an opponent of the plans,  at this meeting tonight.

Navin Shah: Expecting Harlesden people to use Northwick Park A&E is 'absurd' '

Navin Shah, Londoin Assembly member for Brent and Harrow has published this statement on the closure of Central Middlesex Accident and Emerency unit.

I marched on Saturday (15th September) with local residents to keep Central Middlesex Hospital open.

The NHS plans to demote four hospitals in North West London. The proposals recommend the closure of Accident and Emergency departments at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Hammersmith and Charing Cross Hospitals.

This would mean Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent and Ealing will be without A&E departments, and will affect the provision of health care in North West London. Other departments at risk in the affected hospitals include intensive care, emergency surgery, paediatrics and maternity units.

Neither closing A&E at Central Middlesex Hospital, nor restricting its opening hours makes any sense. From personal experience I can vouch for how overwhelmed and over-stretched the A&E at Northwick Park Hospital is.

Since the very restricted opening of Alexandra Polytechnic the demand on A&E at Northwick Park Hospital has greatly increased. It is absurd to expect residents from the Southern parts of Brent like Harlesden to use Northwick Park Hospital given the, very poor public transport links. I would like this ill conceived closure proposal to be withdrawn, until this happens I am committed to fighting the closure plans to save local health services for the local community.

By Navin Shah AM

Without a risk assessment this NHS consultation is nonsense

The Coalition Government's failure to make public a risk assessment carried out on the NHS reforms created a huge controversy.

NW London NHS has gone one step further by refusing to carry out a risk assessment on the changes to the local health service and hospital provision it proposes in 'Shaping a Healthier Future'. Instead they will do so AFTER the consultation, which means of course that individuals, patient groups, GPs and local councils will not be fully informed of the risks when they submit their views.

What kind of democracy is it when you are unable to put forward an informed view because the decision maker won't carry out a vital assessment of the impact of proposed changes?. Changes which could be a matter of life or death

In case you missed it Rob Sale had a letter published in local papers last week about the issue:

We are writing to alert your readers to the way those pushing through the ‘Shaping a Healthier Future’ changes to our NHS, including closure of the four A&E departments, are refusing to produce a ‘risk register’ for the stated options until after the ‘consultation’ finishes on the 8^th October and the decision has been taken.

This became clear at a meeting of the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the eight local councils affected by the proposals held on 2^nd August in Harrow. The Vice Chair of this committee is Brent Councillor Sandra Kabir.

Preparation of a risk register, listing key risks with possible mitigation factors in clear tabular form is a standard tool used in assessing the pros and cons of courses of action. Brent Council has such a scheme in its Corporate Risk Register.

By refusing to carry out this process until AFTER the decision has been taken, the authors of these proposals show their unwillingness to consider the severity of the risk posed to residents by their plans, which clearly could be a matter of life or death. We, the people affected, and our elected representatives are to be deprived of this vital information during the consultation period. This must call into question the will for genuine consultation and, indeed, whether the whole process runs the risk of legal challenge, something we would encourage our Council representatives to investigate.

The Chair of the Committee, Cllr Lucy Ivimy (Conservative, Hammersmith and Fulham) made her position clear in an email to a member of the public who attended the meeting:

‘…for the NHS to produce (a risk register) only after the decision has been taken is extraordinary. The committee will be looking further into various aspects of risk. I am personally concerned that the full impact of the proposed changes has not been made clear in this consultation process’.

We therefore urge the Committee to insist upon risk registers for all of the options including 'doing nothing’ to be provided in advance of any meeting to reconsider risk and these documents should be publicly available. Time is running out.

Robert Sale

On Behalf of Brent Fightback

Harlesden leads the march to Save Central Middlesex Hospital

More than 200 people joined yesterday's march to Save the NHS and Save Central Middlesex Accident and Emergency ward. They marched from Harlesden's Jubilee Clock to Central Middlesex Hospital where a rally was held which included speeches from trade unionists, patients, community activists, Navin Shah AM; Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council; and Cllr Krupesh Hirani, lead member of Brent Council for health and adult care.

Ealing Council shows Brent the way on hospitals campaign

There is an e-petition on the Brent Council website calling on the council to do 'all in its power' to oppose the plans for the reorganisation of hospital services in the area, including the closure of Central Middlesex A&E. The petition can be signed HERE

If any Brent councillors need help with ideas on how a local council can get behind the campaign they should look on the Ealing Council site where there is a Save Our Hospitals page http://www.ealing.gov.uk/soh

It includes campaign materials for the public to use:

Campaign materials

On this page you can download various materials to help you show your support and take part in the campaign to save our local hospitals.

• A pre-prepared letter (word) that you can print and send to the NHS medical director responsible for the proposals (no stamp required)
• Poster (pdf) and banner (pdf) that can be downloaded for you to display in your window
• A pre-prepared letter (word) to send to your own GP
• Download copies of the petition leaflet (pdf) which you can use to obtain signatures of your family, friends or neighbours if they are unable to complete the petition online. This can be returned using the Freepost address on the leaflet.
• You can also download a separate petition form (pdf) if you want to get more actively involved in the campaign and obtain signatures for our petition more widely from within your community.
• A map (pdf) of the hospitals affected by the proposed closures.

Anger mounts in Harlesden over Central Middlesex A&E closure

 I was down in Harlesden this afternoon for our regular spot publicising the closure of Central Middlesex Hospital A&E and the planned protest march on September 15th. We often had queues waiting to sign the petition to local MPs asking them to take a stand against the closure and opposing the privatisation of the NHS.

Local people, many wearing  special T-shirts and Jamaican colours ahead of the 50th anniversary of Jamaica independence, expressed anger at the closure, blamed the Coalition and its attitude to the poor and several took away petition forms to collect additional signatures in the community.

Many expressed support for the hospital where they had been treated and where their children had been born and stressed that the needy local community, particularly the young and the elderly, needed a readily accessible local A&E. They were scathing about the proposal that they should go to Northwick Park in future.There was fury at the likely downgrading of the hospital after millions of 'our money' had been spent up grading in the recent past.

There were frequent comments about privatisation and comments such as 'this government wants to make this country like America where you don't get treated unless you have the money'.

One local shopkeeper who has signed the petition last week came over and told me that he had been down to Central Middlesex to try and find out what was happening. He said that he had been told it was a 'done deal' and that the Trust intended to sell off surplus land created by the closure to build  housing or a hotel. I was rather doubtful about the latter but the sell of makes sense in terms of the Trust's debts. Once again it seems that it will be the poor who pay, this time with their health or in the worst scenario, their lives.

Closing A&E first step to dismantling hospitals

Green Left LINK has published a valuable post by John Lister of Health Emergency on the background to the proposals on hospital reorganisations which include NW London NHS proposals which include an apparently non-negotiable decision to close Central Middlesex A&E:

The phony war is over. With Andrew Lansley's Bill now on the statute book, the gloves are off, and the extended standstill in the process of cuts in pursuit of the £20 billion "efficiency" target has come to an end.

But don't be fooled: this is no cock-up. It is all planned to happen.

One after another, desperate hospital trusts are revealing glimpses of their real financial situation. And accident and emergency units are at the top of their list as they start to close and cut - not because much can be saved by simply closing them - but as a crucial first step to dismantling and closing whole hospitals.

With A&E goes maternity, paediatrics, ITU, High Dependency Units and Coronary Care. With maternity goes women's care. With the loss of trauma goes orthopaedics. Emergency surgery is pronounced "unsafe" or "unsustainable" and removed.

Each element takes a range of supporting services with it, until the hospital is allowed to wither away: and each cutback also makes it harder to recruit medical staff and qualified nurses, opening up arguments that further cuts are required because staffing levels are "unsafe".

To cap it all, trendy arguments are wheeled out by the King's Fund, McKinsey and other hired hands suggesting that new "settings" can deliver services more efficiently and effectively than hospitals: the only snag is that these "settings" and services exist only on paper, lacking evidence they work, and of course the funds, facilities, staff and any political commitment to make them a reality.

Each A&E closure is dressed up and presented as a "clinical" decision: but we know they're being cynical. Vague promises of services "closer to home" end up with the closure of local hospitals that local people value and depend upon, but nothing to replace them.

The reason we know this is because, alongside A&E units, they're also cutting community services and cutting mental health - and the consultation documents on the closures keep referring to the "cash gap", the level of savings they say they need to make.

The list of cuts is growing longer week by week. In London we know that four A&E units - Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith - face the axe in northwest London, St Helier hospital in Southwest London is to be run down, King George's hospital in Ilford, and of course Chase Farm in Enfield.

Across the country there are more: hospitals in Stafford, Rugby, Kidderminster, Redditch, Trafford General in Greater Manchester, Newark, Northallerton and Hartlepool. Among the A&E casualties are some brand new units built with the Private Finance Initiative [PFI]: Central Middlesex cost £62m less than 10 years ago: Bishop Auckland hospital, another PFI, is also to lose its A&E. But also on the hit list are hospitals unlucky enough to have been merged with PFI hospitals, or run by them.

Best known of these is Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup. It has already been largely dismembered in a futile attempt to balance the books of the South London healthcare trust, which is wrestling with ruinous bills for two hospitals, which cost about £210m to build, have been on the brink of bankruptcy for years, and are now dragging down health services for a million people in southeast London. After paying over £500m, there's another £2 billion still to pay.

Administrators have now been brought in to drive through rapid and drastic cuts, although it's still not clear what could be done to tackle such massive debt. Even if all services closed and all clinical staff were sacked, the Trust would still have a massive PFI bill to pay for 20 years: and no nearby hospitals have any spare capacity to treat the tens of thousands of patients displaced from Bromley, Greenwich and Bexley.

The curse of PFI is also driving cuts in Dewsbury in Yorkshire, which was unlucky enough to be merged into the Mid-Yorkshire hospitals trust, whose a newly completed £320m PFI deal fell immediately and deeply into crisis. Dewsbury could lose its A&E, while Pontefract's brand new urgent care centre has already been scaled back, and the main hospital in Wakefield, short of beds, struggles to cope.

But for managers these cuts are too small, and take too long to meet the massive £20 billion cuts target, which is ridiculously being called the 'Nicholson Challenge', when in reality it should be called the Banker's Bonus, the Lansley Bequest, or the Tax Dodgers' Legacy. The cuts were triggered by the banking crisis, deepened by Lansley as part of his plan to run down public sector provision in health and make room for private sector providers, and continue despite the fact that uncollected tax alone adds up to £120bn a year, six times the £20 billion target for cuts by 2014.

So bosses are looking to cut jobs - and even going beyond the current pay freeze to cut pay, with Trusts in the South West seeking to tear up the national Agenda for Change pay scales and threatening heavy tactics to impose pay cuts, and other bosses looking to downgrade staff to cut wages - in some cases by over £2,000 a year.

Job cuts are also on the way - even as we wait to hear the outcome of the inquiry into Mid-Staffordshire hospitals, where trust managers cut too deeply into nurse and medical staffing - with notoriously lethal results. And many trusts are now making cuts much bigger than the £10m that destabilised Mid Staffs.

While savage cuts undermine local services and the quality of care in those services which survive, the rush for private contracts is hotting up, in a new bonanza for the likes of Virgin Healthcare, Serco and other companies looking to cash in - slicing off attractive portions of NHS funded services, while leaving all the complex, costly and risky tasks to what remains of the public sector.

Virgin has now picked up lucrative contracts in community health care, and primary care, and even sexual health services and child health in Devon. Serco, too, is moving in anything they can get their hands on. That company's conspicuous failure to deliver on its contract to deliver out of hours primary care in Cornwall raises questions not only about Serco (pocketing the difference from chronic under-staffing) but also about completely ineffectual regulation and monitoring of private sector contracts by PCTs now, and by CCGs from next year .

Behind the scenes profitable consultancy firms like McKinsey and Ernst & Young are helping themselves to lavish contracts and lining up to take over a growing share of the work running the new Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and their £60 billion budgets.

And while NHS budgets are frozen and falling against inflation, with less money each year for each treatment they deliver, NHS Foundation Trusts are also being freed to boost their budgets with private medicine: up to 49% of income can come from private sources .

While the private contracts are awarded behind the scenes, angry people up and down the country are beginning to mobilize to challenge the closures of local services. They may not really understand privatisation in the NHS or anything about Lansley's Bill, but Mr and Mrs Middle England do know and care about the loss of local emergency services and how long it would take them to go to the next hospital across if their local A&E is closed. This offers a basis of common ground for campaigns to link the issues of cuts privatisation and Lansley's Act.

Campaigns are cranking up. Consultations already just beginning on the cuts, and already public opinion is hardening against them. Some ministers with endangered hospitals in their constituencies are running for cover.

Campaigners have to press their local MPs, councillors, community organizations and CCGs to take a firm stand against these cuts.

Take every chance to challenge, block and delay every cut: they are all driven by a cash squeeze the coalition could resolve tomorrow if they collected the tax that's owed from their rich friends. Some are also driven by PFI: and ministers could sort this out as well, but prefer to leave the gravy train running for their friends in the private sector and watch the NHS squirm.

The cuts are deliberate, the crisis consciously created to open up our most popular public service to profiteers. Don't let them get away with it.

It's time to take a stand, reject the specious "clinical" case for cash-driven closures, and fight for our hospitals. Remember once it's gone, it's gone.

Do your bit for the NHS this afternooon in Harlesden and Willesden

Campaigners will be giving out postcards about the threat to our local NHS and the closure of the Central Middlesex A&E and collecting signatures on petitions this afternoon at Harlesden Methodist Church and outside Sainsbury's on Willesden High Road. (3pm-5pm)

Please come and help publicise the campaign and the march due to take place on September 15th from Harlesden to Central Middlesex Hospital.

Brent MPs under pressure to take up hospitals fight

Sarah Teather, Barry Gardiner, and Glenda Jackson have been targeted by campaigners against hospital closures and privatisation of the NHS in a petition launched this week. The petition reads:

To: NHS NW London, Sarah Teather MP, Glenda Jackson MP, Barry Gardiner MP,

NHS NW London is consulting on proposals which would mean the accident and emergency department at Central Middlesex Hospital, already closed at night, closing for ever. This could be the first step in the downgrading of the hospital, which serves some of the most deprived wards in Brent with the greatest health needs.

We the undersigned demand: 

· The reopening of A & E at Central Middlesex Hospital to provide a full 24 hour emergency service with all necessary back up.

· No cuts to community, mental health or other services. The government can find money for the banks, they should restore the £1billion they are cutting from NW London Health Services.

· An end to privatisation which provides an inferior service for patients and cuts in jobs, pay or worse working conditions for staff, creaming off profits for private companies.

Campaigning organisations will be collecting signatures over the summer and into the autumn. You can run off your own copy using the link below and collect signatures in your workplace or neighbourhood.

Care UK or DON'T Care UK?

Guest blog by Sarah Cox:

If the Accident and Emergency Department at Central Middlesex Hospital closes, as proposed in every option in the NHS NW London consultation document Shaping a Healthier Future, residents in Brent’s poorest wards with the greatest health needs will be at the mercy of private health care provider Care UK which runs the Urgent Care Centre at Central Middlesex.

Urgent Care Centres are designed to take the pressure off A & E departments by dealing with minor injuries and less serious illnesses. Fine, but one of the reasons people go to their doctors or to A & E when the doctor isn’t available, is that they are not medically qualified so don’t necessarily know how serious (or not) their condition is. One of the NW London NHS documents gives the example of a mother who takes her baby to A & E with a high temperature. She is told that the baby is just teething. One of the functions of qualified medical staff should be to reassure patients. What about the case where the baby’s high temperature is not caused by teething but is a symptom of meningitis? Meningitis is hard to diagnose, but if not treated very quickly, can be fatal. There have been reports of Urgent Care Centres failing to spot meningitis and sending a stroke victim home http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/5185165/Urgent-care-centres-putting-patients-lives-at-risk-doctors-warn.html

 

As a patient, Care UK’s record doesn’t fill me with confidence: 

X-rays: At the CMH Urgent Care Centre, Care UK failed to carry out the required checks on 6,000 x-rays, missing such details as broken bones http://www.channel4.com/news/flaw-leads-to-review-of-patient-x-ray%20records. All x-rays should be reviewed by a specialist to make sure that nothing has been missed, they should also be checked against the child protection register and GPs should be informed when their patients have attended the UCC. Care UK neglected to do this and took more than a year to find the flaw in their system and start to review the x-rays. Channel 4 reports, ‘Asked how it had happened, Care UK blamed it on "a couple of changes in the management structure of the team that ran the centre". They also failed to report it to the Care Quality Commission. Care UK said that although it was not legally obliged to do this, it "probably should have told CQC, but nobody picked up the phone".’ What a caring attitude!

The contract to run the CMH Urgent Care Centre was given to Care UK by the former Brent Primary Care Trust. All eight Brent NHS clinical directors wrote urging them not to sign the contract, but were told they were too late. Former members of that PCT are now non-executive directors of Care UK and NHS Brent is tied into a contract with Care UK that they cannot get out of.

Friends in high places: The wife of Care UK’s then chairman gave £21,000 to Andrew Lansley when he was shadow Health minister to help run his constituency office in the run up to the general election, an investment that has certainly paid off when you see how many contracts the firm has been awarded in the NHS and social care sectors. 

Tax avoidance  Care UK, which operates NHS treatment centres, walk-in centres and mental health services, has a reduced tax bill by taking out loans through the Channel Islands stock exchange and coming to an agreement with HMRC Guardian 17.3.12 Care UK join the likes of Vodaphone and Jimmy Carr in claiming that they’ve done nothing wrong.

There’s more about Care UK, but I’ll leave that for the next instalment. What’s your experience of Care UK or specifically of the Urgent Care Centre at Central Middlesex?

Harlesden Area Consultative Forum Postponed

Brent Council has announced that the Harlesden Area Consultative Forum planned for Tuesday 10 July 2012, has been postponed and will be re-scheduled for a future date towards the end of July.

Harlesden is the area where the closure of Central Middlesex Hospital Accident and Emergency Department is particularly controversial.

Ealing Council opposes casualty closures and calls for fightback

Julian Bell, leader of Ealing Council, has publicly opposes plans to close four casualty departments in  North- West London Hospitals, including that at Central Middlesex and called for a public fightback against them.

He told the Evening Standard yesterday:

When these half-baked plans were announced, all our worst fears were realised. It beggars belief that essential keath services like A and E could be cut nearly in half without damaging health care.

The council is committed to fighting these proposals but we need people power.  I want local people to join our campaign and to tell their friends and neighbours, relatives and colleagues to do the same. With a powerful single voice we can save our hospitals.

There were promising signs yesterday that Brent Council may follow when Cllr Krupesh Hirani, lead member for Adult Care and Health, released a series of tweets on Twitter:

• This hospital serves the poorest part of the Borough 
• The Tory Liberal move to close A&E at Central Middlesex Hospital is bad for Brent 
• If we were redesigning NHS services in Brent from scratch, we would have an A&E service at Central Middlesex Hospital

Plans to close Central Middlesex Accident and Emergency confirmed - now organise!

The Brent and Kilburn Times website reports today that Central Middlesex A&E is 'certain to close' as part of the 'Shaping a Healthier Future (sic)' proposals which were launched today LINK:

Speaking at the launch, Dr Mark Spencer, medical director for the programme, said:

We looked at all the options but it is not possible to keep the A&E department open and running as it is now.

Unfortunately when the hospital was built, it was far too big and with too many departments for the people it served so it is not viable to keep it open.

The hospital still has an Urgent Care Centre which is open 24 hours a day and can treat patients within 4 hours of arrival and that will remain open.

The certainty of closure will be challenged by local residents and campaigners who are meeting tomorrow evening at The Trades Hall/Apollo Club 375 High Road, NW10 2JR (close to Willesden Bus Garage) to mobilise opposition.. The meeting will begin at 7.30pm. All welcome.

Damning report on hospital closure plans

Plans to drastically cut health services are exposed in a hard hitting Report “North West London’s NHS - Under the Knife”, written by John Lister, Director of London Health Emergency.

 

The Report, commissioned by Ealing, Brent and Harrow Trades Union Councils, shows that far from improving or modernising services, the outcome of the NWL NHS plans, “Shaping a Healthier Future” , would inevitably be a massive reduction in both hospital beds and services, without any corresponding increase in alternative provision.

  

Dr Lister states that the proposals “could result in the loss of 1750 NHS jobs in 12 months, and 5,600 jobs by 2015, along with the downgrading and downsizing of many local hospitals and services, and the closure of up to 4 of its 8 A&E units.”

 

Although NWL NHS try to avoid stating which hospitals and A&E Departments are under threat; Dr Lister’s analysis shows that the targets of the cuts are likely to be Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith, leaving a massive area of London without A&E provision.

 

He goes on to say that “trendy arguments ... suggesting that new “settings” can deliver services more efficiently and effectively than hospitals: the only snag is that these “settings” and services exist only on paper, lacking the funds, facilities, staff and any political commitment to make them a reality.”

 

Dr Lister will be the headline speaker at the Ealing TUC public meeting on Tuesday 26th June at 7.30pm in Ealing Town Hall.  

The report is posted below:

Campaign launched to save Central Middlesex Hospital

The overnight closure of the Accident and Emergency service at Park Royal's Central Middlesex Hospital is likely to be the first step in running down the hospital and its eventual closure a Harlesden meeting was told last week.

North West London NHS is currently consulting on an amalgamation of Ealing, Central Middlesex and Northwick Park hospitals and it looks as if Harlesden and Stonebridge, the poorest areas in Brent may lose their local hospital and have to travel to A and E at Northwick Park, despite very poor public transport links. It is likely that A and E at Ealing, Charing Cross and Hammersmith may also close.

John Lister addresses the meeting

 John Lister, from the London Health Emergency has been commissioned by Ealing, Brent and Harrow Trade Union Councils, to write a report on the likely impact of the cost-cutting changes. The report will be available soon and a condensed version will be distributed as a tabloid newspaper.

Lister said that the pattern was one of a gradual reduction of different services, starting with A and E, eventually leaving the hospital as an nearly empty shell, which is then closed because people are not using it and nurses and doctors are reluctant to apply for jobs there,

With £314m cuts to be made by NW London NHS by 2015 the hospital closures are just the beginning. Stressing that decisions are being made in order to balance the books, and not on clinical grounds, Lister said that 1,750 jobs will go in the near future, of which 1,000 are clinical.

The aim is to direct patients to 'lower cost' settings, including the setting in which you die. That setting may be your front room and the carer yourself. Jargon such as 'pathway redesign' and 'corporate efficiency' conceal an overall strategy to reduce the number of patients seeking treatment and to restrict access to expensive treatments. The target is to reduce emergency cases annually to a level equivalent to 391 hospital beds and a 22% cut in out-patient appointments.

A further aim is to introduce private providers into the service so that the NHS, the largest public sector organisation, is open to exploitation for profit. The NHS will be left with A & E and maternity services, which are 'too dangerous' for private companies but 'any qualified provider' will offer other services (Virgin, Sainsbury's) undermining pay structures and qualification systems. Lister stressed that with PCTs due to go,GP commissioners will be left holding the baby, but wouldn't have been responsible for the changes that have been made.

John Lister urged local people to use the consultation period to build a movement against the local changes AND against the privatisation of the NHS, lobbying GPs, MPs and local councillors.

Candy Unwin urges broad-based campaigning

 Candy Unwin from Camden Keep Our NHS Public recounted campaign success in saving Whittington Hospital . Different hospitals, cross party and non-party political groups, trades unions, tenants and unions had come together in a united campaign. She said that 1 in 6 Labour members of the house of Lords and 1 in 4 Tories get money from private companies and that 30 MPs get funding from Virgin, one of the main bidders.

Phil Rose, a regional official from UNITE, said that the changes would result in high quality provision for private patients and low quality for the rest of us. He said that one thing standing in the way of privatisation was NHS workers' terms and conditions which the private sector cannot match. The pensions changes was an attempt to reduce these conditions to make the sector attractive to the private sector. He urged support for the '68 is too late' campaign on retirement age and drew parallels with the creeping  privatisation of schools. Job cuts, down-grading of jobs and pay cuts were all in the offing.

In a powerful speech a member of the Methodist Church spoke about Harlesden being a poor area and needing and valuing its local hospital and pledged herself to make people aware of the situation. She said 'Some people are going to die because of these changes'.

 I spoke about the link between health and schools as not being just in terms of the privatisation issue, but also that schools were frequent users of A and E when children have accidents and reliant on accessible emergency treatment in incidents such as that at Chalkhill Primary (see below). With its many railway lines, the North Circular Road, Wembley Stadium, industry at Park Royal and Neasden, there was a risk of a major incident and we needed accessible emergency services to cope. Added to that, although things were quieter at present, there was the possibility of violence and the need for a hospital experiences, as Central Middlesex is, in the treatment of gun shot and knife injuries.

Graham Durham's suggestion of a march in September from Harlesden to Central Middlesex Hospital under the banner of Save Central Middlesex Hospital, Save North West London Health Services, was enthusiastically endorsed by the meeting as was a message of solidarity to doctors taking action on Thursday.

Let local people decide our health needs - not accountants

Guest blog by Pete Firmin, Chair Brent Trades Union Council

Central Middlesex - soon to be down-graded despite recent investment?

Sarah Cox wrote last week in the Brent and Kilburn Times about the consultation which NHS North West London is carrying out into the future of health services across the area. As she says, there is a strong feeling that this “consultation” is merely window dressing for decisions which have already been taken, such as the downgrading of several hospitals in the region, including Central Middlesex. Central Middlesex has already lost its night-time Accident and Emergency service, an indication of things to come.

Although the Health Authority claims its proposals will improve services, much of what they say is purely speculative – relying on new forms of health services which are not yet in place without proposals (including financial) as to how this will change.

Because of these serious worries about the future of the health service across the region, the Trades Union Councils in the boroughs of Brent, Ealing and Harrow are working together to build a campaign to ensure we have the health services the people of the area need and not ones which managers and accountants – let alone private health companies – think are appropriate.

We have commissioned a report from Dr John Lister of Health Emergency, looking at the effects of the NHS’s proposals in detail, both in terms of the loss of services and the effect on jobs in the NHS. This report will be launched early in June, and Brent Trades Union Council is holding a public meeting on the issues involved on Wednesday 13th June at Harlesden Methodist Church, 25 High Street, NW10 4NE. As well as John Lister, speakers will be from the campaign Keep Our NHS Public and the unions organising health workers. All are welcome, and there will be plenty of time for discussion.

June 13th: NHS under the knife

Enormous changes to our local health services are being proposed. They include the merger of Ealing Hospital with Central Middlesex and Northwick Park, permanent closure of A & E at Ealing or CMH, or both, and moving many services out of hospitals into the community.

Unless we campaign to oppose them, these changes will open up even more services to the private sector to be run for profit. The population is growing and health needs are increasing, while NHS budgets are being cut.

Community health services are already understaffed and overstretched. If new services are not put in place before hospital services are withdrawn, the most vulnerable patients will suffer

Save Central Middlesex (Park Royal) Hospital

GUEST BLOG

The public 'consultation' on the NW London NHS Strategy 'Shaping A Healthier Future' held in Brent at the Pattidar Centre, Wembley tonight ( 15 May) descended into chaos  as NHS bureaucrats led by Anne Rainsberry, NHS NW LONDON Chief Executive, desperately fought to prevent debate by patients hostile to the closure proposal for Central Middlesex Hospital.

The official programme of three hours of 'NHS talking heads' was forced to a vote to enable an open debate - however despite all 80  patients and patient representatives present supporting a demand from Brent NHS Patients Campaign  to hold an open debate a small majority of highly -paid NHS bureaucrats, a few Tory supporting doctors and paid NHS hirelings voted to continue with three hours of meaningless platform presentations.

Graham Durham,newly elected Secretary of Brent NHS Patients Campaign,said 

' The NHS is notorious for ignoring patient views and holding events which prevent open debate. This was the worst example yet with NHS bureaucrats earning over £200,000 a year desperately whipping NHS staff to vote to  prevent open debate on the controversial proposals to close Central Middlesex hospital and deny NHS patients their  opportunity to voice their opposition.

Whilst some of the ideas in Shaping ..are based on sound principles of locally available services they are to be achieved only by decimation of hospital services  across NW London.The preferred option of Tory GP Mark Spencer,Medical Director for NW London, was announced as the run down of Ealing, Charing Cross and Central Middlesex Hospitals.

The fight to save these hospitals starts now ..Brent NHS Patients Campaign is supporting the public meeting at Harlesden Methodist Church on 13 June (7.30pm) called by campaigners across NW London to prevent the destruction of these hospitals.

We invite all NHS staff opposed to this butchery of services in the poorest areas of NW London to join this campaign'

BRENT NHS PATIENTS CAMPAIGN 

Tel 07866 616492

Hospital Merger Plans Challenged

36 people turned up at the Sattavis Patidar Centre, Forty Avenue last night to discuss the proposed merger of Ealing and North West London Hospitals Trust (covering Central Middlesex, Northwick Park and St Mark's hospitals). This compared with 100 at the recent Ealing meeting and a 'client' base of 800,000 people.


Professor Rory Shaw, Medical Director, made the case for the merger. The organisational merger would enable the joint Trust to have larger specialist teams which would be more viable than the present small teams, enable shift-work to take place and would attract high calibre staff Economies of scale would mean the Trust could keep pace with developments by buying up to date equipment and make resources, including scanners and operating theatres 'work harder' and the buildings 'earn their keep'. 

He said that Northwick Park's  stroke care unit was a good example of the merits of large, centralised teams and had led to better survival rates and fewer cases of paralysis.


Although the Chair of Brent LINk (Local Involvement Network) had stipulated that the meeting was not to discuss services, Shaw said that the merger was being proposed against the consultation on the commissioning of services that would take place in Summer 2012.  The focus would be on prevention and long-term conditions and more care and treatment in the community. He claimed that the latter was bothe cheaper and more effective.


He said that the move was taking place as a time when there was a general recognition that bigger was better. Other speeches from the six suited males on the platform extolled the merits of 'an army of generic workers', with an implication that these might be volunteers, who could help patients at home with hospital-home transition. We were treated to the management  mantra 'Localise where possible, centralise where necessary'.


Challenged that the presentation had not mentioned the financial plight of the NWLH Trust and that the merger proposal was a cover for cuts, the platform said that there was a financial saving involved of £7m and that this was specified in the Business Plan. Savings would be made in management and through reduction in 'back office' costs. Asked if  'developing the estate' meant selling off prime sites, especially in the light of the apparent running down of the Ealing and Central Middlesex hospitals, they said that sell-offs were not in the Business Plan but 'there may be scope for that in the future'.

Carers criticised the emphasis on volunteers and a speaker from the Sickle Society was concerned about the speed of the changes and poor consultation with users. He said that there had not been sufficient consideration of the needs of people with Sickle Cell and Central Middlesex Hospital's historic role in providing specialist care.

The platform was challenged on the implications of patients having to travel further for treatment and concern that the disadvantaged population of South Brent would be further disadvantaged if Central Middlesex was run down. Health inequalities would increase. A speaker from the floor made a strong demand for a Equality Impact Assessment. Despite repeated requests the platform were un able to advise which bus patients should get from Harlesden to Northwick Park Hospital.

Behind it all was the implication that larger teams would mean each site would have different specialisms which would not be offered at other hospitals in the Trust. The platform argued that routine care would still be provided at each hospital. A question asking if the new arrangements would be able to cope with a 'major incident' in South Brent with its many railways, the North Circular, waste sites and commercial premises; was not answered.


Brent LINk will be putting together its response and you can contribute: brentlink@hestia.org Tel: 020 8965 0309. Brent LINk Unit 56, The Designworks, Park Parade, Harlesden, London, NW10 4HT

Harrow LINk will hold its own consultation:
HARROW LINk: Thursday 12 January 2012. Registration and refreshments from 5.30pm. Event starts at 5.50pm and will close at 8pm. Premier House Banqueting, Canning Road, Harrow, HA3 7TS. Places are limited. If you like to attend please contact Harrow LINk at info@harrowlink.org.uk
or call 020 8863 3355.


TIMETABLE
November 2011 Outline Business Case for merger signed off by NHS London
March/April 2012 Full Business Case approved by the Trust Boards and NHS London
May 2012 Submission for approval by Department of Health Transaction Board
July 2012 Merger takes places
Autumn 2012 Commissioning of Services

Shahrar Ali's report on the meeting is HERE

Brent needs a properly resourced Central Middlesex Hospital

Is Central Middlesex being reduced to a 'poly clinic'?

 The possible merger of the Ealing Hospital and North West London Hospitals Trust is being discussed in a series of meetings in Ealing, Brent and Harrow but anxiety about the future of Central Middlesex (commonly known locally as 'Park Royal') Hospital is likely to be a big issue.

A meeting of 100 people at Ealing Town Hall yesterday provoked a lively discussion with many people concerned about the running down of Central Middlesex Hospital as well as the merger itself. Hospital administrators when challenged admitted there had not been consultation over the withdrawal of overnight Accident and Emergency Services at Central Middlesex and said the decision had been made on 'clinical grounds'. They said they hope to reopen the facility soon. They also stated that an NHS bid to run the service had been rejected in favour of one from Care UK.

The gradual running down of a hospital serving a deprived area such as South Brent/Park Royal is causing considerable concern. Health in poorer neighbourhoods is already an issue: there is heavy pollution from the North Circular Road affecting many local children, possibilities of traffic accidents on the North Circular a higher possibility of gun and knife wounds and more  illness associated with alcohol and drug abuse.

Families and individuals lacking cars to transport them to Ealing or Northwick Park would have a difficult journey to the hospitals or may have to resort to calling an ambulance. More and longer ambulance journeys seem a distinct possibility.

 We have to be concerned about whether a reduced Central Middlesex would be able to cope with a .major incident' in the area.

Central Middlesex has a history of being responsive to the needs of the local population and was instrumental in getting sickle cell anaemia recognised as an illness and pioneering treatment.  There are further specific illnesses in our loaclity, such as TB,  which require such an approach.




BBC REPORT

Make your voice count – LINks will be holding events to seek views from its members and the public regarding the proposed merger


LINks across Brent, Ealing and Harrow will be holding events to seek the view of LINks members and the public regarding the proposed merger of Ealing Hospital NHS Trust and The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust. Representatives from the Trusts will give a presentation and be available to answers questions. The events are as follows:

BRENT LINk: Monday 12 December 2011. Registration and light refreshments from 6.30pm. Event starts at 7pm and will close at approximately 9pm. Sattavis Patidar Centre, Forty Avenue at the junction with The Avenue, Wembley Park, Middlesex HA9 9PE. Places are limited. If you would like to attend, please call the Brent LINk Team on 020 8965 0309 or email: brentlink@hestia.org

HARROW LINk: Thursday 12 January 2012. Registration and refreshments from 5.30pm. Event starts at 5.50pm and will close at 8pm. Premier House Banqueting, Canning Road, Harrow, HA3 7TS. Places are limited. If you like to attend please contact Harrow LINk at info@harrowlink.org.uk
or call 020 8863 3355.