Sadly today it was reported that the Queen Elizabeth Hospital remains among the poorest performing trusts in the country. Our local hospital has been judged as being one of only 16 in the country to be in the worst placed band - one. The words of MP Henry Bellingham do not inspire reassurance in me, nor in those i live and work among who use our local hospital on a regular basis. It will only be when our hospital is properly funded, to make up the £10.1 mn it was cut, that it can hope to regain a better outcome. In the meantime hard working nurses have been denied a pay rise by a government which thinks its acceptable for tax payers to fund the bonuses of £567 mn paid to bankers at RBS. Do we really think this is right? Jo Rust From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Thank you for contacting me about clause 119. First of all, many of you have asked me about the potential impact of this clause on our own local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and the current review of clinical services. I would like to make it immediately clear that Clause 119 will only ever be used in extreme circumstances when services are either clinically unsafe or when a Trust is financially insolvent. This has only happened twice so far in truly unique circumstances and only when all other means have failed. As I am sure you are aware, our own local hospital is in Special Measures, which is not to be confused with the Trust Special Administrator regime. Hospitals only go into the latter when all else has failed. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital was put into Special Measures after a genuine “whistleblower” revealed a small number of significant failings, all of which have been well documented in the local press. The previous senior managers have all left and we now have in place two very senior, incredibly able and highly regarded people who are in the Chairman and Chief Executive roles. There is also a new Director of Nursing and a new Delivery Director. They have an action plan in place; they have recruited more nurses; and the Government has made some extra money available to help them through this process. I have recently met up with both the Chairman and Chief Executive and they assure me that the recovery plan is on track. I can assure you that there is no question of our hospital closing and I have no doubt that the current locally driven review of clinical services (which once again is nothing to do with the Trust Special Administrator process contained in Clause 119) will conclude that we need a thriving district general hospital with key services to serve a community that has a steady but sustained growth in population. As the Minister, Dr Daniel Poulter, said in his speech last Tuesday: “Any scaremongering that is taking place locally is, frankly, outrageous and to the detriment of the hard work that local professionals are doing to design the right health care services. The TSA system is one of last resort...all other processes will have had to be exhausted before the TSA process will be necessary.” Coming back to Clause 119, there may well be extreme circumstances where a Trust does go into administration – as I mentioned earlier, it has so far happened twice across the hundreds of Trusts throughout the country. When this happens, it is necessary to give the administrator enough power to take the difficult decisions necessary to ensure patients get safe care. This clause makes vital changes to the Trust Special Administrator regime (TSA) that will help protect hospital services and save patients’ lives. To further clarify, the TSA regime, introduced by Labour in 2009, provides a time-limited, clear and transparent way of dealing with local health services which are badly failing. Once again, I repeat, this process is used only as a last resort, in the most urgent cases when all other efforts to ensure safe, effective and affordable local services have been unsuccessful and lives are potentially being put at risk. As I am sure you will understand, turning things around in these most severe of cases requires that the administrators can take a look at the wider health services locally. The Government’s view is that the original legislation was always intended to allow the administrators to look at the wider health economy in this way. This is the only sensible way to resolve problems for local patients. We have a national health service, comprised of interdependent hospitals, and so it cannot be right that the administrators are currently only able to look at single failing providers in isolation. This Government therefore introduced clause 119 to the Care Bill. Without it, improving patient care and preserving hospital services will be much harder. I would also like to point out that the Government has accepted some changes to Clause 119. They have listened to the views put forward by people like yourself. As you probably know, it does ensure that commissioners of other affected trusts would have every opportunity to make their views known. It also lengthens the time the administrator has to produce their draft report and extends the formal consultation on the recommendations, crucially giving more time for involvement of the public and other key bodies, such as local councils. In conclusion, I am absolutely convinced that, when it comes to the extreme cases of failure, it is vital to allow a TSA to look at the wider local healthcare system – if we do not do this, and if problems are not dealt with swiftly and efficiently, lives could be put at risk. Finally, I am sure that it has not escaped your notice that, in the two cases where the TSA system has been used, there was a much wider health economy than we have here in West Norfolk, so when the two hospitals in question were considered for closure, there were other hospitals in reasonably close proximity. This obviously does not apply to the QEH because our nearest neighbouring hospital is many, many miles away. This does not mean to say that we can be complacent about the need for improvements at QEH, but the problems that led to the Special Measures related to a few very small parts of the hospital and are being successfully dealt with. Also, the overwhelming majority of staff, from consultants, doctors and nurses through to ancillary staff, are passionate about the hospital and are working tirelessly to ensure that it turns the corner whilst ensuring that the people of our community have a first class hospital on hand when they need it. I am sorry that this message is so lengthy but this is a serious and complex subject that warrants a full explanation. Thank you again for taking the time to contact me and please do not hesitate to get in touch if I can ever be of assistance. Every best wish, Henry Bellingham, MP Henry Bellingham MP
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 11:24:58 +0000
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