Chorley urgent care and the missing Hospital directors

In May this year, the local papers reported that four top directors were leaving the Lancashire Teaching Hospital NHS foundation trust. This sparked suspicion as to why such top executive figures had made the decision to leave?

The trust had a deficit of £42m and were rated as 'requires improvement' by the care quality commission - and has recently again been rated the same.

Gone...

• operations director
• divisional director for surgery
• divisional director for medicine
• divisional director for support services

At the time, our very own dedicated campaigner Steve Turner predicted that the departures of so many directors would mean "that audits by the Care Quality Commission will pick up on increasing failures at operational levels this puts our hospitals at risk.”

The prediction was accurate, and a few months later in October 2018 the CQC awarded the hospital trust another rating of 'requires improvement'.

Suspiciously, the trust chief executive  Karen Partington stated all directors who had left the Hospital trust had confirmed they'd got other jobs, and Ms Partington wished them every success. A strange congratulation considering they'd left Ms Partington and the rest of the board to collect the unfortunate accolade that would lead to requires improvement from the CQC.

The real reason of course is the ship has been putting plasters over its leaks for years; hoping someone won't notice - fortunately campaigners and health scrutiny found out the ship was heading towards the rocks and stepped in.

In 2017 the trust board were castigated in an independent review about Chorley A&E closure for refusing to ask health boards for advice and assistance. They were also criticised for not recruiting staff earlier.

The independent review panel looked at the arrangements at the time at both Preston and Chorley hospitals, to see if our A&E department at Chorley could reopen, within the current medical staffing available. And it was re-opened albeit part-time, but it was re-opened and apparently could have been reopened sooner.

Finally, there is one paragraph in the external review that I believe indicates the true intentions of closing Chorley A&E permanently under the local STP plan called Our Health Our Care.. here it is....

"Having the emergency department reopened at the same time as the opening of the new 24-hour urgent care centre, integrating the two services, will provide additional resilience. This is an opportunity to enable the service to reopen without compromising patient safety".

All along they've wanted to ensure a part-time A&E could likely run alongside a 24 hour Urgent care centre. This is the precursor for a permanent closure of the A&E as a simple expansion elsewhere (eg Preston hospital) could take up the slack leading to the permanent closure of Chorley A&E.

I stand by what I've always said: The urgent care centre was not built to supplement Chorley A&E but to eventually replace it. Now the urgent care centre is privatised, the CCGs, who hold the purse strings and no doubt pull them, intend moving other services out of hospital and doing the same to them.

There is of course another reason. 

In October the same year [2016], NHS England chief executive and ex vice president of Americas largest private health insurer 'Simon Stevens' had previously singled out the Lancashire Hospital chief executive Karen Partington for praise in an interview with HSJ, for making the “right decision about what was needed in Lancashire”. He said it was an example of how he would support and create a “safe harbour” for local leaders who would take brave decisions and who were “going to drive” change in the health service.

Well not while we're around you're NOT!

It's Our NHS, and we're not letting you give it away or to play dangerous game with!

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