Our Health Our Care, and Healthier Lancashire. A plot against our NHS?

England has been split into 44 regions called 'footprints'

here is a big change programme being designed across Lancashire and South Cumbria.”

Read more at: http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/lancashire-s-hospitals-changes-on-cards-1-7949713

Read more at: http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/news/lancashire-s-hospitals-changes-on-cards-1-7949713

There is a big NHS change programme being designed across Lancashire and South Cumbria, and we better be prepared. 

I'm going back a few weeks to the shock news that the local hospital trust board and CCGs are considering options to build a new super hospital and reconfigure or even dispose of Chorley & Preston hospitals.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS foundation trust wouldn't mention this unless they were serious about their intentions, and this is why we must be prepared to fight tooth and nail to keep hospital services here in Chorley and South Ribble (C&SR).

There is much suspicion, and rightly so, that the Preston hospital site would be sold off for housing development with potentially the same fate for C&SR hospital. This ties in with the Lancashire County Council city build program which dictates future housing development in the region to take into account growing populations.

The LTH Trusts and CCGs 'Our Health Our Care' program is a short term plan that runs alongside the longer term 'Healthier Lancashire' program to transform how care is delivered in our region.

Both these programs are part of NHS England's five year forward view (FYFV) which divides England into 44 regions called 'footprints'. We are footprint 4, Lancashire & South Cumbria.

Each footprint has been ordered to produce a 'Sustainability & Transformation Plan' (STP) by 30th June this year to completely change the way the NHS works. Footprint Boards have to prove they can clear their debts within a year. And how do they do that? They cut more services, close more beds, sell off land and hospitals that are public assets.

These plans are not 'pie in the sky' and very soon we will be confronted with decisions that far outweigh the campaign we're currently fighting.

To give you an insight into just how serious the LTH trust are about implementing the STP plans in our region, they've just undertaken a risk-assessment that looks at what to do in a situation where the public seek a judicial review over the highly contentious decisions they and the CCGs will be making on the STP...

"The Strategy and Development Director acknowledged that the processes described within the [STP] presentation were formulaic although this was a tried and tested model utilised by a number of organisations involved previously in significant service change and would ensure avoidance of any potential judicial review".

The above is from last months trust board report, although I have doubts over the claim that significant service changes are tried and tested, but we can't take any chances. The first phase of the our health our care has now been implemented.  Of course you didn't know about it because you're not supposed to.

It's now time for all those concerned to step in and start asking questions about what the details are in the STP plans for our region. What does MP Seema Kennedy or MP Lindsay Hoyle know about these plans?

Doctor knows best, or does he?

Local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), which are supposedly 'GP-led', seem to be accepting the plans put before them by the hospital trust board with little or no opposition.

This is due mainly to the fact that they too are unaware of the long-term consequences of the plans, which many believe are for the current government to implement a privatised healthcare system similar to that in the U.S.

They will aim initially for a 3-tier healthcare system (basic NHS service, NHS services topped up with either private services or fee-paid optional NHS care, and fully private services). *As described in The Plot Against the NHS.

Basic NHS services will gradually be replaced with healthcare insurance similar to that in the USA.  As supported by the former private healthcare advisor and boss of NHS England ‘Simon Stevens’ (see link at bottom).

To implement the STPs, the trusts involved will need the backing of GP's as the trust and its directors of strategy progress through each stage of the STP.  Our aim now is to stop them, in their tracks!

We will need to work alongside our GPs and convince them that the STP strategy is taking our NHS in the wrong direction, that of privatisation. We'll need the backing of MP's and councillors from all over the region. We will need to get more involved and write and find out if MPs, county councillors and others if they are aware of what's happening. We will need to be very convincing...

and there's nothing more convincing that the thought of losing our National Health Service to  a government who is hell bent on making money off the backs of the sick and poor...

related link:
999 Call for the NHS & the 44 Footprints of Death