NHS England hold Lancashire Hospital Trust to Ransom

A local Hospital Trust have been told to get their deficits under control or face bankruptcy.

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS foundation trust still have a deficit¹ of £10.8million. They blame temporary changes to emergency services at Chorley & South Ribble Hospital for driving all of the deficit including both the income and expenditure.

The deficit as a result of the Chorley A&E closure was reported as £1.7million which has resulted in the trust being refused £3.3 million from the sustainability and transformation fund (STF) from NHS England.

The LTH Trust have applied to the Department of Health for a loan of £15.3million of which £13.1million would support the revenue deficit² and £2.2million would support capital expenditure.

Before becoming a foundation trust the Dept of Health were obliged to help out a trust without resorting to the trust asking for a loan. So the real tragedy of being a foundation trust has now hit home and LTH are having to 'borrow' more money to cover the loss of the A&E tariff due to the temporary closure (a tariff is a fixed amount of money the trust gets per patient with the amount depending on the procedure, more high-risk/complex procedures demand more money).

The Trust have indicated to the health regulator NHS Improvement (formerly Monitor) that a further revenue loan may be required to offset the costs associated with the temporary closure of the Chorley emergency department and any resultant effect to the sustainability and transformation fund (STF).

The above is worrying. the cost of closing Chorley A&E is £1.7m plus the £3.3m loss of the STF results in potentially borrowing another £5m. If LTH can't make up the shortfall in the meantime, they don't get the STF funding. Yet if they don't get the STF money they might just 'have' to continue to borrow more placing their part-time re-opening of Chorley A&E at risk.

The Finance Director added that there would be further impact on the Trust’s financial position following introduction of the urgent care centre (UCC) service in November 2016.

Now we have a REAL problem. 'further impact on finances' means the deficit is likely to go up and not down. WHY on EARTH have the trust not undertaken a financial risk assessment when their bid for the UCCs failed?

There's no excuse since they were already managing the UCC's so the problem must be down to the something else?

The trust are asking the new UCC service provider GTD Healthcare* if they may have access to recorded activity [from UCC activities] to include within trust performance data.

This seems strange since the trust seem to be claiming credit for operations undertaken by a separate organisation (GTD Health who will be running the UCC from Jan 2017).

The LTH trust board again confirmed that demand and ambulance transfers had increased since the closure of C&SRH A&E. Indicating the problem still exists.

Due to changes in the Health & Social Care Act 2012, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are now under no obligation to provide healthcare services to people who are not registered with a GP practice. This means that patients presenting at hospital could be turned away and redirected to a doctor instead. The Lancashire Hospital Trusts medical director Mark Pugh seems to emphasise this in the board report topic on 'A&E improvement programme'..

"The Medical Director noted that data was also available to show changes in behaviours, for example patients not registered with GPs who would need to be diverted to GPs for appropriate advice".

It had been confirmed that the urgent care centre service may not mobilise from November 2016 and it may take until January 2017 to introduce the service.

There are already communications problems between the GoToDoc healthcare Ltd and the trust.

Weeks have now passed and GTD have yet to reply to the trusts request for information. Disputes between GTD and LTH trust already seem to have arisen over a contract for accommodation and...

It was explained that the Trust had been asked whether the urgent care centre service could be covered by GPs working with the Trust at the moment to bridge the gap. A copy of an email had been received from the CCGs which asked GoToDoc to contact the Trust although this had not yet happened. The Company Secretary was currently working on the accommodation contract as the Trust would be acting as landlord for the urgent care centre facility and it was noted that no Trust staff would TUPE to GoToDoc and would remain as Trust employees. Mr M Welsh commented that GoToDoc might attempt to recruit existing Trust staff which would increase the staffing deficit within the Trust’s urgent/emergency services. It was agreed that this should be included on the risk register.

More Doctors Leaving?

"this week the Trust had lost two doctors to a Trust in Derby owing to a more attractive night-time rota and attempts were currently being made by the Trust [LTH] to secure three more doctors".

Only last week [20th Oct], Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, run by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, was proposed by the local CCGs to be closed and demolished under their STP program titled 'Right Time Right Care Right Place'. Due to similarities, LTH trust are now considering following the same program as Calderdale and are discussing joint communications with the Calderdale & Huddersfield trust. From the LTH board report....

"A slide presentation had also been circulated which provided an outline of a visit that had been undertaken to Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust to discuss their [STP] programme which was similar in content to the Our Health Our Care programme".

A patient safety risk had been introduced as the Preston Primary Care Centre group were not prepared to support out-of-hours cover at Chorley and the Chorley Medics had relocated from the Chorley and South Ribble Hospital site [to Euxton]. Risks highlighted through loss of income and financial consequences in relation to the urgent care centre service.

• The trusts October board report states that 78 out of 90 beds had been introduced following the CQC inspection in July 2014 but have now been decommissioned. Ironically, the Lancashire Trust now claim there is not enough capacity in acute services which is impacting directly on the delivery of key access targets.

STP related contracts have been brought forward and must be signed by 23rd of December 2016 indicating accelerated plans for privatisation before public consultation periods end. NHS England are basically holding hospital trusts to ransom if the trusts don't meet financial targets by fixed dates.

This will inevitably result in trusts cutting corners resulting in poor quality patient care.

LTH Trust are rated RED in 6 out of 8 of the required NHS England standards potentially involving NHSI intervening. The trust could go bankrupt or be taken over by another provider.

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source: LTH board papers 5 October 2016
http://www.lancsteachinghospitals.nhs.uk/board-papers

*Go To Doc Limited aka GTD Healthcare Limited are registered with the Care Quality Commission as a 'limited' company. See Here under 'Who runs this service'...

GTD Healthcare Limited refer patients to clinics and surgeries operated by GTD Primary Care Limited. GTD Primary Care Ltd are registered on company house as a 'for-profit' company.


¹deficit is where a sum of money falls short of what is needed; debt

²revenue deficit is where the net amount received by a company in revenue (income) is less than the net amount projected (expenses).

TUPE is the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, 2006, and its purpose is to preserve staff contractual terms and conditions of service, following their transfer from one organisation to another. 

Huddersfield hospital closure, GPs blamed for betraying NHS patients

Local GPs sitting on controversial 'clinical commissioning groups' have betrayed their patients by voting unanimously to close the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. So what can we learn from this fiasco?


The proposed closure of Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (HRI) has brought home just how important it is we now concentrate on NHS England's 'STP' plans to introduce a U.S. style private healthcare insurance system in England.

GP-led Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs)

On Thursday this week the joint Huddersfield and Calderdale CCGs unanimously approved plans to close HRI A&E followed by demolishing HRI altogether and building another hospital (with NO A&E) on an adjacent site.

All this was done under the local STP plan titled 'Right Time Right Care Right Place'.

The consultation was a sham, with the CCGs basically ignoring 19 recommemendations put to them by the council Health scrutiny committee. The disgrace continued when a survey revealed 67% of those consulted didn't agree with the plans. Yet the GPs on both CCGs historically voted to remove vital local life-saving emergency services for their patients.

It's not comforting either when the Preston MP claimed these type of reconfigurations were 'pie in the sky'. I recall this sort of talk before from parliamentarians and with bluff called the exact happened with said MPs claiming to be astonished with the decisions. I don't trust em.

There seems to be more and more opposition to CCGs wielding so much power over such crucial NHS services, and rightly so. There was always bound to be many conflicts of interest with GPs on these CCGs awarding themselves contracts with other interests going 'undeclared'.

Relationships between Doctor and patient have certainly soured since the advent of CCGs.

"For some [GPs], to be blunt, the blatant systemic conflict of interest in providing services that they would themselves commission was embraced as an opportunity for personal enrichment. Greed was the spur. They were in a minority but they had disproportionate influence because they were pro-market and pro-GP commissioning and so had the government’s ear".

"It would be interesting to know how much gold had been promised to stuff in the insatiable mouths of certain doctors. The rewards would come quickly. A survey in Pulse – the GPs’ magazine – reported that by December 2012 over one-fifth of board members on clinical commissioning groups had financial interests in private health care providers; the BMJ put the number at more than one-third in March 2013.6 Things are looking good for Dr Fat Cat".

Above two paragraphs kindly reproduced from the book NHS SOS by Tallis, published 2013.

Back over at HRI, the plan to remove A&E from hospital surroundings is part of the 5 year forward view. The Private healthcare sector's primary objective is to separate out the more lucrative high turnover, low-risk unplanned services from hospitals. These will then be consolidated into smaller clinics called 'Multi-Speciality Provider' clinics (MSPs) as per the American Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) model.

These clinics have been trialed over here in England a while back and were named Darzi clinics or Polyclinics etc. They were in effect 12% more expensive per patient, ideal money spinners for the private sector but a great loss for NHS tariffs.
*A previous Netcare contract for these clinics showed 39% of patients, for whatever reason, didn't receive treatment, yet NetCare collected £35m for work never undertaken.

The demolition of HRI also satisifes the STP criteria for releasing estate and introducing personal health budgets for chronic conditions via the MSPs.

Most CCGs are guided by committee officers who, ironically, are also allowed to vote on the NHS England policies they are recommending!

Many of these 'officers' are even ex employees of private health policy advisory consultancy firms such as KPMG, McKinsey or think-tanks such as the King's fund. No wonder HRI campaigners are angry, we have all well and truly been stitched up by those we thought we could trust, our GPs.

It seems the involvement of GPs on CCGs has been mostly limited to a group of willing ‘reformers’, many with an eye to potential personal gain and increased local influence available under the new scheme. Over at Chorley & South Ribble CCG, the basic pay for the Chairperson is £120,000 p.a.

A disgraceful amount considering the same position on the previous Primary Care Trusts was £15,000 p.a.

CCGs report to, and are manipulated by a body calling itself 'NHS England'.
It's CEO 'Simon Stevens' is ex vice president of U.S. based 'UnitedHealth', the largest private healthcare insurer in the world.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that CCGs are therefore implementing the U.S. privatisation model throughout the NHS in England.

So what can be done to stop the onslaught against our NHS under these STP plans?

The 44 regions in England, inaptly titled 'footprints' by Steven's mob are all ear-marked for privatisation. And the consultation for most footprints hasn't even begun yet.

But stop it we must. And as Hands Off HRI campaigners have now said, the gloves are off, the fight is not over.

Chorley & South Ribble campaigners are fully behind the Hands off HRI campaigners as we're all aware whats happening affects not just Calderdale or Huddersfield but the whole of England.

A storm is gathering, we need to be prepared to support each other and ensure our NHS remains intact...

Why We Need to Save Our NHS

In 1926 when I was a small lad, my sister Marion contracted TB and died in a workhouse Infirmary because my dad, who had worked as a miner since the age of 12, was too poor to provide medical care for his daughter on a working-class salary. Tragically during my childhood in the early 20th century thousands met their end like Marion.

I can even remember as a boy hearing the piercing cries from open windows on our street of people dying from cancer who didn't have the dosh to buy morphine to ease their passage from life. To this day, I am haunted by the inhumane manner in which my sister's illness was treated or how the Society of my youth believed that only the well-to-do or well-connected deserved medical care.

That is why after the brutality of the Second World War my generation of ordinary People demanded that our nation create the NHS. We knew it was our only hope of making life better for ourselves, our parents and our children.

The people of my generation sacrificed so much during the Great Depression and through the Second World War and the NHS became a peacetime dividend.

The creation of the NHS was also our solemn pledge to future generations that we would be a civilised nation that would treat all citizens as worthy of care and compassion.

The NHS is for me as great as Magna Carta because it's freed millions from the tyranny of sickness and poverty to move forward and lead productive lives.

We must remember that the NHS is as essential to our Nations well-being as the Armed Forces are to protect us from foreign threats. It is why today we ordinary citizens must be vigilant against governments and corporate interests that seek to dilute the NHS's ability to deliver health care to all its citizens through privatisation.

I am one of the last remaining people that can remember the cruelty of life before the NHS, and I can assure you that it is essential for Britain's prosperity and social well-being that my past doesn't become your future.

HARRY SMITH

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The above is kindly reproduced from the FOREWARD by Harry Smith from the book: NHS for Sale: Myths, Lies & deception by Jacky Davis, John Lister.
available on kindle reader for £6.47


The above text was not typed but translated from a speech to text translator called Speechnotes (free online use - best used with Chrome browser).

Watch the Video version
of Harry Smith's speech

MPs 'disgraceful' voting record on NHS & disabled

Meet Seema Kennedy - MP for South Ribble. Seema has a secret she doesn't want you to know about.  Seema even voted in the house of commons to keep it 'top secret' so even her constituents don't know about it.

HYPOCRITICAL really, considering Seema voted recently for the spies charter which means YOU would have to provide information by law, yet Seema thinks she may be exempt.

So What's the Secret?
Seema voted recently not to publish her parties secret 'detailed' plans to dismantle and privatise the National Health Service. The plans are called Sustainability & Transformation Plans [STPs] and are an attempt to bring about financial stability (sustainability) across the NHS by including more of the private sector.

On the 14th September 2016 in the House of Commons, a motion was proposed by shadow health minister Ms Diane Abbot that the government reveal its plans to introduce a whole new healthcare system for England.

"That this House notes with concern that NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans [STP] are expected to lead to significant cuts or changes to frontline services; believes that the process agreed by the Government in December 2015 lacks transparency and the timeline announced by NHS England is insufficient to finalise such a major restructure of the NHS; further believes that the timetable does not allow for adequate public or Parliamentary engagement in the formulation of the plans;and Calls on the Government to publish the plans and to provide an adequate consultation period for the public and practitioners to respond.

• Seema Kennedy voted not to reveal the controversial plans that could see the end of the NHS and the beginning of a private insurance-based healthcare system.

In 2013 we had 140 full A&E hospitals in England. When the STPs are complete there will only be between 40 and 70 left. According to NHS England boss Simon Stevens, to make the NHS affordable and sustainable we, the public, must get used to longer ambulance journeys for emergency care, longer waiting times for treatment and the possibility of paying extra to be seen by a doctor.  This was planned in 2013, but shelved until after the 2015 election as being 'politically sensitive'.

Any 'duplicated' hospital services will be merged, so if Chorley hospital provides the same service as Preston hospital, the service will be closed at one of the hospitals. GP surgeries will be closed and many will be merged into larger clinics called Multi-Specialty Provider Clinics (MSPs) with some specialist services transferred from the hospital into these clinics run by a consortium of GPs outsourcing the work to the private sector. It gets worse, but I'll explain more indue course..

Of course Seema voted to keep these toxic plans secret. To some people like Seema Kennedy, the thought of a publicly run, publicly owned health service is repugnant. And the only way they can change that is by stealth and keeping the privatisation plans under wraps so that when they are revealed, it will be too late to do anything about it. 

Seema's involvement in the closure of her constituents South Ribble Hospital A&E has been minimal to say the least. So much so, she feels her A&E doesn't even warrant a mention in her newly published 2016 MP Annual Report.

 
So while we're at it, let's take a look at some other things Seema may not wish you to see....

Seema Kennedy is a Conservative MP, and on the vast majority of issues votes the same way as other Conservative MPs. Seema Kennedy has never rebelled against their party in the current parliament. 

Welfare Benefits 

Almost always voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability. Consistently voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits.

Seema's website says "some people are scornful of social action", yet Seema openly votes to cut benefits to the most needy in society such as the sick, poor and disabled. The South Ribble MP recently voted against higher taxes on banks.

In March this year, Seema Kennedy voted to force through the ESA disability benefit cut. The cut forced reductions of £30-a-week to disability benefits to some of the most disabled in society.

Local Government (Council) Funding & Transport

South Ribble council will be disappointed to hear that Seema Kennedy in February this year (2016) voted to CUT the government grant to local councils by almost 25% compared to last year (2015).
Seema has also...

• Consistently voted for reducing central government funding of local government
• Generally voted against more powers for local councils 
• Voted against greater public control of bus services 
• Consistently voted against a publicly owned railway system 
• Consistently voted against measures to reduce tax avoidance 

Has your local bus route recently been closed? maybe you should ask Seema why?

The council came up with an idea on how to part-fund new social housing for the less-well-off, but Seema's against this as well...

On 9 May 2016:
Seema Kennedy voted against giving local councils a right to retain payments in respect of vacant high value council houses to provide new social homes where they can demonstrate a need for them.

Seema's secret NHS privatisation plans involve mass culling of the NHS workforce. Not to worry, Seema's colleagues have another plan to suppress trade union workers human rights if they object.. read on...

On 10 Nov 2015:  Trade Union activity - restrictive regulations
Seema Kennedy voted against requiring the consent of the devolved administrations and local government before applying new regulations on trade union activity within their areas of responsibility. (clause 9) Seema Kennedy voted to require the appointment of a picket supervisor and for them to be identified to, and contactable by, the police.  On the same day Seema Kennedy voted to require a 50% turnout in order to make a strike ballot valid and for other aspects of increased regulation of trade union activity. 

How Seema Kennedy voted on Social Issues

• Consistently voted against laws to promote equality and human rights

•  Seema supports 'fracking' to extract shale gas yet voted against measures to prevent climate change.

 

Maverick's Comments

This MP is a disgrace not only to her constituents in South Ribble, but to British democracy.

Not content with preventing local councils using their own schemes to build affordable social housing for the poorer in society, she then votes with her cronies to attack the disabled by forcing through benefit cuts that remove much needed money to keep a roof over their heads.

Strapped for cash due to Seema's governmental cuts, local councils had no choice but to close some bus routes. So the councils came up with plans for a publicly run service to get them open again. But as usual, Seema Kennedy again voted to stop public control of bus services. Like a spoiled child clinging on to its favourite toy, there's no way Seema and her crony Tory buddies were going to let the peasants get their hands on the railways ever again. She also voted against this.

Not satisfied with apparently bullying trade unionists who actually do a days work, Ms Kennedy then has the audacity to vote against laws that would bring harmony and equality into peoples lives.
But Seema doesn't seem to want that. She apparently doesn't want YOU to gain control of something that would remove profits from government coffers.

I don't know about you, but I thought I'd seen the last of Margaret Thatcher. It seems we have either a reincarnation or Nora Batty has pinned a blue carnation on her pinny and gone on the warpath with the brush handle.

Either way, the sooner England sees the back of MPs like these the better our land will be. No secrecy, open democracy, and most important of all, people who can think for themselves and have a heart and feelings for others.

  I'll leave you with this thought...............

A free health service is a triumphant example of the superiority of the principles of collective action and public initiative against the commercial principle of profit and greed.

            Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear

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SOURCES
Seema Kennedy MP Voting record above from: they work for you.com

source origin: www.theyworkforyou.com

Are Clinical Commissioning Groups Awarding themselves contracts?

Chorley and South Ribble Clinical Commissioning Group have seemingly failed to declare conflicts of interest and awarded themselves contracts.

The following details are from the Chorley & South Ribble (C&SR) Clinical Commissioning Group report....

GP Out Of Hours - OOH
(1) The GP OOH services are currently delivered in Preston by Preston Primary Care Centre Ltd (PPCC) from their base located on the Royal Preston Hospital (RPH) adjacent to the Emergency Department (ED).

(2) OOH services are also provided in Chorley via Chorley Medics Ltd (CML) from their standalone OOH base at Euxton.

Point (2) above clearly shows that the CCG buy services from Chorley Medics Ltd. The Chorley medic GPs are also registered with the C&SR CCG under the 'any  qualified provider' accreditation process. GP's sit on the CCG. The CCG buys services from Chorley medics so it would be a huge conflict of interest, if not corrupt, if the CCG awarded a contract to Chorley medics Ltd (effectively awarding itself a contract). Yet the contract was still awarded....

Contract awards
The contract below has been jointly procured with NHS Greater Preston CCG.

Adult (over 16) direct access physiotherapy
■        Chorley Medics Ltd, 114 Wigan Road, Euxton, Chorley, Lancashire


Each time a GP refers an Adult to physiotherapy, Chorley Medics Ltd are paid for the session + any other expenses. The referrer doesn't even have to work for Chorley Medics Ltd, they don't even need to be a GP to direct funds to Chorley Medics.

GP-led commissioning has become a lucrative venture for many. Indeed, this financial year alone (2015/16), the part-time chair of C&SR CCG collected £155,000 from the taxpayer, for being the CCG chair, and that's not including the fact they collect another salary as a partner in their own GP practice. source: C&SR CCG Annual Report

The part-time chairpersons annual CCG salary alone would pay for a blood pressure monitor in every single GP surgery waiting room in Chorley and Preston.

Greater Preston CCG chair collected the highest remuneration for sitting on the part-time CCG committee. A whopping £305,000 including pension benefits remuneration.

 

CCGs, the beginning of privatisation

Chorley & South Ribble (C&SR) Clinical Commissioning Group have wasted no time in privatising local NHS services. As soon as the CCG was formed in 2014, they sold off musculoskeletal (MSK) services to Virgin Care on a £6.9m contract then proceeded to sell off Elective service contracts to the private company Ramsay Healthcare.

Since its advent, little is known about CCGs and how they consult other GPs in their area on service contracts. There's certainly no consultation with the public about how they feel on which services should remain in the NHS or otherwise. 

A CCG cannot even claim to have any popular mandate or support, since CCGs were set up without any public consultation or involvement. The process makes a transparent nonsense of the Tories assurance of ‘no decision to be taken about me, without me’.

For the most part, GPs recognised that if they were forced into the role of commissioners, they would have to take the blame for imposing cutbacks and the rationing of care to their own patients, which were integral elements of the reform package. Clearly this has created a fractious relationship between GPs and their patients.

Some also recognised that GPs would have little day-to-day control over running their local CCG. As clinicians with a caseload of patients, most GPs lack the time, energy and inclination to take on a major strategic management job involving a nine-figure budget, or for planning services in much wider areas than their own practice.

So how can any GP sat as a CCG chair justify collecting  £155,000  per year of tax-payers money?

It's quite clear that those GPs who jumped on the CCG gravy train are in it for financial gain and to forward the agenda of their paymasters, that of privatisation of NHS services.

A handful of well-meaning but misguided idealists have hung in and engaged with the development of the new CCGs, but the involvement of doctors has been mostly limited to a group of willing ‘reformers’, many with an eye to potential personal gain and increased local influence available under the new scheme.extract from NHS SOS

Finally, we must remember that the local CCGs have just sold-off a £35m contract for Urgent Care Centre and associated services that they themselves will likely be employed to use.

I was shocked to see the Health & Social Care bill make its way into an Act of parliament, thus paving the way for privatising NHS services to 'any qualified provider'.

Unless we do something NOW to stop such perceived corruption we will inevitably arrive at the bus stop of no return, and we will have lost our NHS forever...

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Related

C&SR CCG annual report salaries & remunerations

C&SR Contract Awards
source: https://www.chorleysouthribbleccg.nhs.uk/contract-awards

The Chorley A&E/UCC contract and the non-profit Myth

We should be asking WHY the Lancashire Teaching hospital NHS foundation trust sold-off the urgent care centres contract to a non-profit company, after all, we could argue the NHS is non-profit.

Here's a home truth: private companies have been circling the NHS for decades waiting to get their hands on NHS contracts and estate. Bidding for an NHS contract as a 'for-profit' company would reduce their chance of winning the contract.

So they front a company as not-for-profit/non-profit and either hide the for-profit parent company as a trust or subsidiary or simply start-up as not-for-profit then switch to profit making when the time is right (by contract exchange/renewal). *This is what's likely to happen in Central Lancashire once the bulk of NHS estate and contracts have been signed over to other companies next year under the STP plans (our health, our care for example).

There are other methods of switching but many don't need to switch from not-for-profit/non-profit at all since they can make a profit from their business ventures in other ways.

For example, tax-exempt non-profit companies often make money as a result of their activities and use it to cover expenses. In fact, this income is essential to an organisation's survival. As long as a non-profit's activities are associated with the non-profit's purpose, any profit made from them isn't taxable.

There are many other ways to make a profit from a non-profit social enterprise/business, And what's to stop services being sub-contracted out? If it aint accounted for in the contract, it can be done.  But for now we should concentrate on how the NHS A&E is going to work alongside such a company as GTD healthcare.

As suspected, the 5 year contract deal, sold-off by the local CCGs has backfired. The original contract was to provide the services to populations from facilities co located with the Emergency Departments (ED) of Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at Royal Preston and Chorley District Hospitals. But since the Chorley hospital no longer had an A&E, the contract needed some amendments.

To appease GTD healthcare, a scheme may have been designed that satisfies the above contract; albeit on a 12 hour part-time basis (ironic considering the trust chief executive Karen Partington argued at earlier board meetings the A&E must be 14 hours opening as per NHS England's guidance).

The 14hour/12 hour A&E opening issue is the likely reason the independent report was bounded back and forth before its final release. Someone's been telling porky pies, someone's been stalling the re-opening of Chorley A&E for quite some time and we can all guess who and why, But we'll come to that later....for now just remember these words 'our health our care'.

And be prepared to battle to save the very heart of our NHS in the coming months...

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Contract Description
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/7e501d15-b25d-4d3c-9223-dd10aad95c73

Tory NHS Privatisation and its Labour Advisors

Which political party do you trust to save our NHS?  or is it too late to be saved?

Lord Patrick Carter, a Labour peer, is advising Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt on how hospital budgets can be better spent.

Carter (Baron Carter of Coles) co-founded private nursing home company Westminster Health Care in 1985 with Martin Bradford. And now, he's just suggested that bed-blocking in NHS hospitals could be solved by sending patients awaiting discharge to,,,, you guessed it,,,,, private nursing homes.

In an attempt to recoup losses in the NHS brought about by his previous leader, the warmongering, NHS privatising 'Tony Blair'; Lord Carter has joined forces with NHS England boss Simon Stevens, a former Labour Councillor for Brixton, in advising Hunt on how to privatise the NHS.

Ironically, Stevens who also advised Tony Blair on health policy, also advised New Labour on how to get the private sector more involved in the NHS.
He supported Andrew Lansley’s NHS reforms which led to the Health & Social Care Act 2012 passing through parliament resulting in opening up the NHS to private companies, formulation of CCGs, and the STP plans we are seeing now across England.

Oh, and while we're at it, Simon Stevens wants the Conservative Michael Gove’s free school policy applied to the NHS.

The NHS must be really be in the sh1t if they are taking advice from a former president of American healthcare company UnitedHealth, the largest private health insurance company in the US.

Stevens' previous experience seems to be coming useful in preparing the NHS for privatisation, and for the introduction of a US-style healthcare system.

Times of austerity gives the Tories just the opportunity they need to implement allsorts of policies they otherwise wouldn't.

Remember austerity in the 80's amid the recession?
The Tories then began to propose privatisation as a potential panacea. Conservative MP Geoffrey Howe extolled the "discipline" of the marketplace in the NHS via commissioning.

The emerging doctrine was that privatisation would make the large utilities more efficient and productive, and thus make British capitalism competitive relative to its continental rivals. In this period, the government sold off Jaguar, British Telecom, the remainder of Cable & Wireless and British Aerospace, Britoil and British Gas. The focus had shifted to privatising core utilities.

But now, after being elected in 2015, they're back, they're bad, and this time they're after privatising our NHS. And it seems they have the support of Labour peers and former Labour councillors to nudge everything along!

They all more or less seem to support the same disastrous policies for dismantling our NHS.

Well, considering the UK electorate generally votes Tory or Labour 'cos their dad did' it seems we need to make a decision on which laughable party would better protect the NHS at the next election.

I don't trust any of the mainstream parties, but there are rumblings in the Labour movement that a bloke with the initials JC would uphold his promises when elected to government, to reverse the damages done to the NHS since the Blair years.

Yet time is of the essence, and the next election is a long way off.
Not heartwarming considering the tories are currently steaming ahead with plans to make full use of the previous coalitions H&SC Act and fully open up the market to privateers and implement Simon Steven's 'five year forward view'.

Between now and the next election in 2020 the only hope we have of saving our NHS is for the people to come up with their own ideas, their own 'plans' to prevent the private sector onslaught.

If you do have any ideas on how to save the NHS from privatisation, it might be wise to keep them to yourself. At least for now...

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Lord Carter's plans for saving the NHS £5bn a year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34589128

What's Stevens doing running our NHS?
https://leftfootforward.org/2014/04/4-things-you-should-know-about-new-nhs-england-chief-simon-stevens/

NHS internal market - a history of privatisation

A moment of honesty is required - New Labour began the dismantling of our NHS