NHS in crisis. Closure of Community Hospitals will cripple the District General Hospitals and thus the Medical Services
Separately to - Dr Alison Diamond MB ChB CE of the Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust and Dr George Thomson MB ChB Medical Director (NO REPLY)
Dr Tim Burke BM (Southampton) Chairman NEW CCG This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dr Nick Roberts MB ChB MBA Chief Clinical Officer SD&T CCG and Dr Derek Greatorex MB ChB Clinical Chair This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Dr Derek Greatorex replied.)
Dear Dr ….... and doctors on the CCG board,
We write as doctors to doctors, with over 300 years of service in the NHS between us, because the service is in crisis. We have especial concern about the closure or downgrading of Community Hospitals (CH) and how that will effect the competence of the District General Hospitals to deal with the ever increasing need for medical care. We list just a few signs of this crisis for brevity. We have no conflicting interests, our concern being only for the maintenance of good, rational services for all patients.
We know the duties of your public body was made clear by Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE Chief Executive of the NHS in England on 29 July 2010
• support from GP commissioners;
• strengthened public and patient engagement;
• clarity on the clinical evidence base; and
• consistency with current and prospective patient choice.
We will return to these rules later.
NHS Letter to Earl Howe
TO This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and by Royal Mail 31st March 2015
The Rt Hon Earl Howe PC Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Quality
Department of Health and Social Security
Richmond House
79, Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS
REF: Your letter to Mr Stride 9-02-15 PO00000912802
Dear Lord Howe,
Mr Stride forwarded your letter the next day (1) and suggested that I would want time to consider it. This reply is long delayed. The political landscape, and especially that of our NHS, changes by the mile as on a train. I see that the Efford Bill ran out of steam 3-03-15 so this letter will deal with a few central points. Incidentally, I have asked Mr Stride to correspond by e-mail. That would be better for the plebiscite in allowing the easy sharing of correspondence etc and be less costly. At the Westminster end it would save many of those precious millions including that spent on expensive, crested ivory paper. And governments ask often that we should use e-correspondence. Furthermore, it is driving the NHS into becoming inappropriately 'paperless'.
Comments on local 38 degrees blog
TTIP is a great threat but less than the corruption in our UK. Whilst people battle against TTIP, they ignore, perhaps, vicious EU competition rules. These are central in driving 'privatisation' within OUR NHS and in our other public services. The concordat that Milburn made with Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute in 2000 was also a big factor.
The task is to get as many fellow citizens thinking, and then fighting for OUR NHS. Consider bill boards on your car if you have one. Ours are outside ready for a trip into town - made for last Saturday.
If you care for OUR NHS you will have to fight for it. The politicians have it by the throat.
Find a candidate who is independent of party, who has done a job, has principle and vision, and who will fight for our NHS among other things that are vital to us.
Roof racks and do-it-yourself skills are the only requirement. I am investigating printed posters so waterproofing will not be necessary.
OUR NHS: Are you Confused - Stop using OUR NHS as a political football
I have been pleading that the NHS should not be used as a political football for about 20 years.
The plan I urged was this -
The NHS would be kept away from the government of the day. Instead it would be led by a scrupulously chosen National Executive peopled by experts in all relevant fields and with evident wisdom in health and other fields. They would be responsible in all respects.
It would report to parliament every six months via the Health Select Committee. That report would include progress, unmet needs, future plans etc
Read more: OUR NHS: Are you Confused - Stop using OUR NHS as a political football
Paper with sketches for Dr Ben Titford, member of SD&TCCG
What are the purposes and functions of Community Hospital beds?
Dr Ben Titford presented a paper on this subject-
Proposals for the future of community health and social care services Update briefing – September 2014 Moor to Sea Locality
Ashburton and Buckfastleigh
“Engagement in the town will start later in September. It is the view of the locality GP lead, Dr Ben Titford, and of other GPs in both towns, that this rural area with poor transport links needs bed-based care for patients. This would be at the existing community hospital in Ashburton.”
1. Beds for those who are very unwell, requiring complex and increasingly specialist medical care, outside the acute hospitals – possibly fewer
2. Beds for those who no longer need to be in the acute hospital, but need to recuperate before they are well enough to go home – possibly more
3. Beds for those who are not so seriously ill they need to be in the acute hospital, but who are nevertheless too unwell to be at home, especially if they would be alone – possibly more
Read more: Paper with sketches for Dr Ben Titford, member of SD&TCCG
A bill put by Clive Efford MP
Mr Mel Stride MP for Central Devon
re http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2014-2015/0018/15018.pdf
Dear Mel,
You are probably aware that the NHS is in crisis. I am not being alarmist. I worked within it as a doctor and surgeon for 40 years. I loved my work but I did not enjoy the bumf. Most of this came out of political diktats - from all colours.
I have kept a close interest in OUR NHS since early retirement which came out of sickness. On top of doing a very busy and demanding job in orthopaedics and trauma, I was fighting alone in Torbay against Mrs Thatcher's internal market and for the life of our excellent single specialism Princess Orthopaedic Hospital in Exeter, the latter with good colleagues. Both battles were lost. The internal market doubled the cost of administration from 5% to c. 10% as I had predicted. The number of desks doubled and with them long and ridiculous titles like 'Patient Services Administrator'. I had to phone him often to have the detritus removed from the corridor to my fracture clinic. All this was not what the public might have expected from a Tory reform. Very few people know that £1.3 billion was added to a £30 billion budget as a result of Mrs T's monetarist dogma. But I do tell them in newspaper pieces, public meetings and on Youtube x2.
Ebola - its isolation: A shambles?
Dear Mr Pym,
31-12-2014
Forgive this brief intrusion. I am a retired orthopaedic and trauma surgeon but I was trained at St Mary's which has been at the forefront of the analysis and cure of disease for many decades.
I applaud your detailed inquiry into this current case and in particular what surveillance took place at HR.
Love Gardens, and Avoid Back Pain
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Ideal for your woodburners or hearths.
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A Quotation From: The NHS Dismantled
In his report to the Conservative Party’s Economic Reconstruction Group in 1977, Nicholas Ridley wrote that:
"...denationalisation should not be attempted by frontal attack but by preparation for return to the private sector by stealth. We should first pass legislation to destroy the public sector monopolies. We might also need to take power to sell assets. Secondly, we should fragment the industries as far as possible and set up the units as separate profit centres."