Tuesday 10 June 2014

VICTORY!!

This Campaign has succeeded. Weston Hospital Trust has announced that it is no longer at risk of being franchised out to a private "Health" Corporation.

It now looks as if the Tories' plan to give 5 small hospitals over to their corporate chums in the healthcare sector has crashed. The original scheme was to kill off 5 NHS hospitals in this way :

  1. Hinchinbrook
  2. George Eliot, Nuneaton
  3. Whiston
  4. Epsom
  5. Weston
Of these 5, only one, Hinchinbrooke, has been sold down river. All the rest have been pulled back from the brink.

The question is - why? Why have the Tories dipped out?

I wish it could be said that they trembled before the onslaught of this very campaign, but that would be a bit f an exaggeration. Although the fact that the Bristol Clinical Commissioning Group lost a legal case brought by our Bristol campaign colleagues may have played a part.

Weston Trust claim that it is because the Trust has got better marks in its latest assessment. Congratulations are due to everyone who helped bring about that improvement, but it is not really the reason. Better marks just means that it is a more profitable concern to take over.

The reason is probably down to electoral politics. With a General Election due in a year's time, with the economy less and less of a major preoccupation for people, and with health rising as an issue in people's minds, the Tory campaign managers may have decided to chuck some heavy baggage overboard.

(Incidentally, I love the comments of John Penrose MP, con, Weston super Mare, welcoming this decision. I have a pile of letters from him lauding the private sector as ideally placed to administer health care. "this should kill off any lingering fears that the hospital might be privatised for good", he says. In my correspondence, he denies that franchise means privatisation).

So politics is one factor. Economics may be another. The corporate bean counters will have been doing their sums, and must have realised that they simply do not add up. Weston is under bedded and under funded, the real investigations reveal this, and so they have all lost interest.

At least until the next election. If the Tories win, they will be back with another scheme to benefit their shares in the private sector. So this campaign will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

Has the Project Board been acting within the Law?

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 is the cause of much of the grief in the NHS. This top-down reorganisation is more voluminous than the Act that set up the NHS in the first place. It is generally loathed. However, it does have a section that the local WGH Procurement Board do not seem to have looked at, or if they did, did not understand, or if they did, they did not bother to implement. it is section 14Z2. It goes like this:

14Z2 Public involvement and consultation by clinical commissioning groups
(1) This section applies in relation to any health services which are, or are to be, provided pursuant to arrangements made by a clinical commissioning group in the exercise of its functions (“commissioning arrangements”).
(2)The clinical commissioning group must make arrangements to secure that individuals to whom the services are being or may be provided are involved (whether by being consulted or provided with information or in other ways)—
(a)in the planning of the commissioning arrangements by the group,
(b)in the development and consideration of proposals by the group for changes in the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the proposals would have an impact on the manner in which the services are delivered to the individuals or the range of health services available to them, and
(c)in decisions of the group affecting the operation of the commissioning arrangements where the implementation of the decisions would (if made) have such an impact.
(3)The clinical commissioning group must include in its constitution—
(a)a description of the arrangements made by it under subsection (2), and
(b)a statement of the principles which it will follow in implementing those arrangements.
(4)The Board may publish guidance for clinical commissioning groups on the discharge of their functions under this section.
(5)A clinical commissioning group must have regard to any guidance published by the Board under subsection (4).

(6)The reference in subsection (2)(b) to the delivery of services is a reference to their delivery at the point when they are received by users.

I included the whole section to block any claims that it was taken out of context.Now it is very clear that the Weston Project Board has not held public consultations. There is therefore a serious question of whether they are acting, or have been acting (this legal language is infections) within the law. 
The Campaign has a team of solicitors looking at this question. Our solicitors feel that we have a strong case.
 

Wednesday 2 April 2014

Good News - George Eliot Hospital to stay in NHS

George Eliot Hospital in Warwickshire was at risk of being privatised, because of poor performance which led to it being placed in "special measures". However, thanks to a huge effort to improve services, the threat has now passed.

This victory, together with the decision that Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG did not follow its duty to consult the public, and the victory in Lewisham, prove that it is possible to save Weston Hospital from private sector, provided that local people fight for it.

Friday 31 January 2014

Petition to save Weston General Hospital from privatisation

We have a petition. It says simply

We want our local hospital, Weston General, to be partnered by an NHS trust and we want reassurance that a full 24/7 A & E Department will remain at Weston General.

Please sign the petition here.


Wednesday 22 January 2014

Funding: is it a level playing field?

Two letters to MP sent off today.
First:

John Penrose MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA






Thank you for your letter of 13th December regarding Weston Hospital.
I would like to raise the question of whether the tendering process for WGH services is equitable, and also whether it is legal.

My understanding is that any NHS providers tendering for partnership will be working under annual budgets which mean that they have to use up the allocations for that specific year. Any unused monies are clawed back and the amount allocated in the subsequent year is reduced by the amount of under-spend. This was the case when I was involved in hospital budget allocation in the past, and I am not aware of any changes.

I believe also that private companies are free of this constraint. They can vary their spending according to the circumstances of that year, holding money over, or drawing on future allocations.

I expect that the exact arrangements are more complex than I have outlined above, but if it is broadly correct, any NHS provider tendering for the WGH contract is clearly in a disadvantageous position. It is absurd to suppose that cash requirements will be the same from year to year. If NHS providers are indeed disadvantaged in this way, the tendering process is inequitable. Assuming that there are legal requirements for the tendering process to be even-handed, funding differences of the sort that I have outlined above would be illegal, and unless the situation is made even, any decision could be potentially subject to judicial review, with all the costs that would entail.

I would be very grateful if you would be so kind as to find whether there are indeed discrepancies in the funding mechanisms available to tenders from NHS partners vi a vis tenders from private corporations.

Thank you


Second


Dear John

Thank you for your letter of ...
In this letter I want to deal with your last point about ideology, because it is fundamental to this correspondence, and raises one important question which I pose at the end of this letter. You allege that in opposing private for-profit contractors for what you believe are ideological reasons, I could be insisting on an inferior level of care for patients.
In theory it is possible to conceive of a situation where the same patient with the same condition receives better treatment and care at the hands of a private corporation compared with treatment and care provided by a public service, even though the level and provision of funding in the two cases were identical. 
On the other hand it is equally, if not more, possible in theory to conceive the opposite, where public service provision is better than private, especially in a situation where the funding levels were the same. 
However, as I am sure you will agree, we are not dealing with theory, but with political and economic realities. 
The first reality to acknowledge is that the NHS is more efficient than private provision, as evidenced by the fact that health care in the UK comes in at nearly half the cost of health care in the USA, despite the fact that US health care excludes the poorest (and therefore most needy) section of the population.
The second reality is that for ideological reasons, the NHS is being slowly but surely being pushed towards the American Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) insurance based system. Each of the 13 or 14 top-down reforms that have taken place in my time in the NHS has made the organisation more oven-ready for privatisation. The purchaser-provider split, fund-holding practices, the imposition of Foundation Hospital status, the whole sorry gamut of reforms, they have all nudged the health service towards privatisation. The current news is that 70% of health service contracts issued are going to private corporations. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, if adopted, will legally open the NHS to competition from US health corporations.
Therefore, in a few years’ time, we can realistically envisage that Weston Hospital, having been taken over by Serco or similar organisation, and the NHS having been transformed into an insurance-funded rather than a tax-funded organisation, discovers that a patient referred to their services has, for whatever reason, no insurance cover and no private wealth. The patient is rejected, and dies shortly afterwards. This situation is a stark example of where private care is inferior to public care. 
In short, your theoretical scenario where private is better than public is first neutralised by the opposite scenario, and is then trumped by the case where the present franchising operation has given way to full blown privatisation and care is denied to patients on financial grounds.
To put it clearly and simply, the present situation for Weston is the thin end of the wedge, a step towards a situation where health care is allocated on financial and not humanitarian grounds.
This is the reason why the WGH Patients Before Profits Campaign is set adamantly against franchising out Weston's services to a private corporation. 

You will say that this is not the intent, and that Serco or whoever will continued to be funded from the public purse. But you know as well as I that insurance based funding of the NHS has been under discussion. All it takes is for some future Government, even without an electoral mandate, just as your Government passed the Health Services Act 2013 without an electoral mandate, dictates that all who want to receive NHS care must take out health insurance. That is all it will take, and when it happens, we are in the inhumane situation I outlined above.
You have suggested that by rejecting the franchising of Weston Hospital to Serco or the like, I could theoretically be presenting patients with inferior health care.  I have shown that the whole trend of successive NHS reforms is leading the NHS towards the private US healthcare system, which means that people who have no means to pay will be denied health care.
Aneurin Bevan said "no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means". I am not a dogmatic socialist, but as a doctor I strongly agree with the truth and importance of that statement. 
Do you?

Tuesday 21 January 2014

Victory in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

Good news from the Health Service Journal


A clinical commissioning group (CCG, the new local NHS governing groups led by GPs) leading one of the most high profile procurements in the NHS has agreed to publish commercially sensitive documents following a threat of legal action.

A law firm acting for campaign group Stop the NHS Sell Off in Cambridgeshire accused Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG of acting unlawfully by failing to allow opportunities for meaningful public engagement in the tender of a multi-million pound contract for older people’s services.

In a letter before action sent on 10 December Leigh Day said the CCG had been “preventing proper patient involvement” by refusing to let the public see tender documents that had been shared with bidders.

The firm argued that the CCG was in breach of its legal obligations to engage with the public, as set out by the 2012 Health Act.

It gave the CCG seven days to either share the documents or put the tender on hold - or face the prospect of judicial review proceedings being initiated.

HSJ understands the CCG has not conceded that it acted unlawfully. However it has agreed to publish the documents in question.

David Lock QC, who was instructed by the group, but who normally advises NHS bodies, told HSJ the case showed CCGs face conflict between commercial confidentiality and public engagement.
He said: “This tension must be resolved in favour of openness because those are clear legal obligations which have been imposed on the CCG by Parliament.
“It is not possible to run the NHS like Tesco’s supply chain where everything is kept commercially confidential.”

Other lawyers working in the NHS told HSJ it was a difficult area for commissioners.
A partner in one leading firm said they were caught between a “rock and a hard place”.
They added: “There are things commissioners can do to try and mitigate the risk of challenges, but if there are patient groups who may not like proposed changes then there are likely to be difficulties, and of course the bigger the procurement the greater the risk.”

Lawyers for the Cambridgeshire campaign group pointed to the fact that the value of the contract changed during the process and bidders had pulled out, as revealed by HSJ, as evidence that decisions had been taken about the shape of services without public involvement.

The letter said: “It appears to our clients that the CCG is only prepared to engage with patients at a very high level of generality… By the time details of the proposals are made available to patients and the public it may be too late for patients to influence decisions which have already been taken.”

The firm highlighted four areas where the CCG had not met its obligations. It said the CCG had breached its duty to have a patient involvement policy and a procurement strategy while its constitution did not fully reflect the extent of its requirements around engagement. Finally it said the CCG had not taken into account NHS England’s transforming participation in healthcare guidance.

At its governing body meeting on 7 January the CCG announced plans to refresh its communications, membership and engagement strategy and strengthen its constitution in relation to patient engagement.

The meeting also considered the procurement strategy which the CCG told HSJ was “in development” and would be published by the end of the month.

The CCG said it had now “reached a point in the procurement process” at which it was able to publish more information, including a pre-qualification questionnaire and its “prospectus”. It said information in the documents could be redacted if “necessary” due to commercial sensitivity.
Arnold Fertig, the CCG’s lead on its older people’s programme, insisted the group was “committed to openness and transparency”.

“It has provided information on the older people’s programme and the procurement at CCG governing body meetings, including the publication of documents from those meetings, through attendance at key meetings, forums and events, on its websites, in publications, and during engagement meetings with patient and carer groups,” he said.

We can keep Weston Hospital out of the clutches of Serco &c. But we need to fight for it.