Lancs STP leader says STP plans are 'meaningless' to public

Lancs & South Cumbria STP leader accepts her new NHS reform plans are almost 'meaningless' to the public. Lead planner says STP is 'not a plan'.

Speaking as part of a roundtable discussion earlier this month next to two prominent STP leads, Amanda Doyle and David Pearson, Mathew Swindells (National Director of Operations and Information NHS England) added that it’s “really up to local leaders” in the meantime to manage how they engage with their communities with respect to ongoing plans – but said NHS England would “discourage” people from publishing plans they’re still working on.

Commissioner chair claims Lancs & South Cumbria STP is "not a plan"

Adding to this, Doyle, who is the CCO at Blackpool CCG and Sustainability & Transformation Plan (STP) lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria, clarified that what her footprint has so far is “not a plan", a complete narrative that describes everything we’re going to do and what healthcare will look like in five years’ time”. Instead, it is a series of templates, government information and finance templates, most of which would be “almost meaningless” to the wider public.

Is the STP 'ask' really really difficult? Or impossible?

Doyle, who is also the co-chair of NHSCC*, argued that the STP ask is “really, really, difficult”, but necessary: “We’re not making any bones about that, and the message back to Matthew, Simon [Stevens] and Jim [Mackey] is that this is really hard to do in the time we’ve got. *NHS Clinical Commissioners is the membership organisation of clinical commissioning groups.

Lack of detail due to lack of public involvement?

“But we have got unlimited time to sort this out. We are not sustainable as we are. We do not have the luxury of two years to nail down every detail of everything. We have to get on and deliver, we have to improve health, we have to improve outcomes, and we have to be able to afford what we’re doing.”

Swindells agreed, adding that every day NHS leaders “decide to have another committee meeting” rather than “getting on and making a hard decision”, the system is “not delivering the optimum NHS and social care with the money that’s available”.

What do we know so far?

Well, the STP for Lancashire & South Cumbria is supposed to contain decisions that are part-fed from feedback from public events on Central Lancashire's 'Our Health Our Care' plan , the local delivery plan (i.e. the Central Lancashire submission towards the overall Lancs & South Cumbria STP.

Public had no input into their local plan or STP

THREE public 'listening events' were organised by local CCGs and their partners for November and December (2016), and March 2017. But NHS England brought forward the submission date for two year operational pans (for 2017/18) and the STP was published BEFORE the first public event.

Two of the events went ahead, but since the plans had already been submitted, program leaders attempted to deceive the public by talking around the options in the plan and instead concentrated on the lesser contentious issue of social care.

Doyle claims "We do not have the luxury of two years to nail down every detail of everything".

Yet her STP nails down absolutely no details whatsoever and isn't worth the paper its written on. A tweeter and well known author on NHS health policy recently tweeted Doyle's STP was 'rubbish'.

I'm inclined to agree, after reading the empty statements in the Lancashire STP I was left wondering if the public had been involved more detail could have been included.

But the fact is the public and local authorities haven't been included in the STP (draft or otherwise) leaving the whole 'transparency' issue in question.

Any plan rolled out in secret should be doomed to fail.

It looks like Doyle and her cronies wish to roll-out their ill-thought out STP and 'nail down' the details as they progress, with or without public involvement.

Not as long as we are here to fight against it they're not!

Campaign group "Protect Chorley Hospital from Cuts and Privatisation" are awaiting a reply from the local STP leaders on why the public have not been involved in the 2 year plans and STP local delivery plan.

Links & Sources

NHS Expo Dec 2016. Dr Doyle declares STP 'not a plan at all'.