Report from Kevin Donovan, Defend our NHS

[with apologies for the Leader of the Council’s use of the phrase ‘going forward’ which makes one’s toes curl]

Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May are about to feel the force of some strong anti-STP feeling. Campaigners in Wirral scored a major victory on Monday night (19th December). A full meeting of Wirral Borough Council voted overwhelmingly to reject the Cheshire & Merseyside STP in the strongest terms.

The motion carried said:

This Council is extremely concerned about the failure of NHS England to consult with elected members and the public prior to the publication of Sustainable Transformation Plans which propose far-reaching changes to the configuration of hospitals in the acute sector and the delivery of health services in Cheshire and Merseyside in order to plug a £908m hole in the NHS finances.

Council agrees to write to the Secretary of State for Health and call on the government to withdraw these Plans immediately with a view to holding urgent discussions with key partners, including local Councils, on how good quality health and social care services can be provided going forward based on continuing to provide a National Health Service which is properly funded and free at the point of need.

Council is appalled that under this Tory government we have:

·      The worst NHS deficits on record - £2.45 billion

·      In England around 3.9 million people are now on the waiting list to start treatment

·      1.8 million people waited four or more hours in A&E last year – up over 400 per cent since 2010

·      One in four patients have to wait a week or more to see or speak to a GP or nurse, or don’t get an appointment at all.

Council calls on Theresa May to give the NHS the funding it needs.

The rejection follows a long campaign by Defend Our NHS (DONHS) which has hundreds of members in Wirral and more widely across the North West and other parts of England, as well as several thousand Facebook ‘friends’. Council committees and councillors were lobbied and provided with evidence and arguments to use in making the case against the ‘slash, trash and privatise’ proposals.

Councillors from the Labour Party, along with Lib Dems and Wirral’s one Green Party representative, supported the motion; the Tory minority, to their shame (and to the harm of their constituents) voted against. Speakers, including some who had attended a recent large DONHS public meeting were passionate in support for our NHS. The latest leaflets from the Stop STPs campaign were particularly effective.

Victory gives heart to core DONHS activists who have now established their own plans for a higher profile media and public presence. Buoyed by several generous donations from trade union branches the Group will be much more visible with banners, leaflets and presence on the street. Group members will now be ‘howling’ more loudly against the STPs on 23rd December.

Protect public from shameful, mad, ridiculous and dangerous STP Oxon KONP tell Council

We were present on Thursday the 17th November outside and inside Oxford County Hall for the Oxfordshire Health & Scrutiny Committee (HOSC which become more Oversight & facilitating) to start the necessary pressure to remind our local elected councillors of their duty and obligations to both public and patients to protect against the 'shameful' , 'mad' . 'ridiculous and dangerous content of Sustainability and Transformation Plan proposals.

Two Initial oral statements made by members of the 'coalition'

The public does not want STP and the public outcry is beginning. And just watch the efforts being made to quell opposition. The Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire and Berkshire STP plan orders that at every stage, communications experts must be employed to dress up the bad news as deliriously good.

It does not take the brains of an archbishop to realise the trust has made changes at the Horton to make STP easier to push through. And I have to thank them actually, because these so-called temporary moves are demonstrating how damaging and dangerous STP will be.

I hope recounting some recent stories will demonstrate to you – and the managers who ultimately bear responsibility – that the consequences of STP will be unjustified and completely unacceptable.

Because of patient confidentiality the trust will only explain such horrendous cases with written permission from patients or families. So you won’t hear the majority of cases - because people are too upset and some are superstitious about appearing to criticise their dedicated doctors and nurses, which is very convenient for managers who do not want the truth revealed.

Last week I was emailed by a woman whose mother was released, still vomiting, after general anaesthetic, with an open wound, after a kidney cancer operation. Discharged with no community or GP attention in place, her shocked and completely untrained daughter was handed syringes and told to administer her mother’s post-op injections.

The second was a man, discharged within a few hours of having his lymph nodes removed for cancer. When she got in touch, his wife was hysterical as his wounds were seeping and she had no idea what to do – again no acute hospital at home, and she had an Ofsted inspection the following day.

The third is an accident victim with a broken arm, broken hip and two broken legs. In spite of having to lie flat, they want him out of the Horton right now because of the insane closure of 10 trauma beds. With cases from Banbury and Oxford queuing up, managers were desperate for an address to ‘deliver’ him to. His working parents cannot cope with a multiply-injured young man on traction. What are families to do? What about those with no family?

These are three examples reported to me in the last week. What about post STP? Managers don’t know because it’s untried. What is Plan B? Where’s the way back when it proves unworkable?

Loss of the Horton’s maternity, acute medicine, paediatrics, trauma and A&E would cause utter chaos. The JR can’t cope now, and it too must reduce beds under the plan. As a foundation trust it will soon be offering 49% of beds to private patients. Just imagine.

On behalf of Banbury I urge HOSC to act in the interests of electors and refer any Horton downgrading to Jeremy Hunt.

Dr Liz Peretz ( Oxford Keep Our NHS Public)

The update on our STP in Item 8 this morning asks you to endorse huge scale cuts that would have devastating effects on the people you represent. You are the only people who can call this process into question So I will suggest you ask the following searching questions and tell the officers you do not accept their update, and demand further work.


These plans must be open now. (it has happened in other parts of the country). How else can you see how they work? And they must be whole system – including social care and public health – and across the whole ‘footprint’. There is no other way you can see how ‘sustainable’ they are and what impact they will have on your constituents.


Ask the officers if privately and hand on heart the numbers in their plans add up. We spend less per head on health than most of Europe – we should be expanding not cutting the budget. People will continue to get ill – you can’t cut demand in health. You can just increase suffering.


The plan needs to be made public and then consulted on in full, not in parts. We all know what effect changes in community care have on hospital care and vice versa. It has to be all out in the open together. As Victoria Prentis has said you must ‘get the consultation run as one process. It can’t work otherwise’ 
And you must assure yourselves that no binding contracts are signed off before the public has been consulted. (We have heard there may be some important signing on December 23rd) 
 
So – this is our plea for you to call on the officers to withdraw this update, halt procedures, not sign anything off in December, and come back with a full plan that all officers are sure will work, without having a deadly impact on the people of Oxfordshire. Also to resist any pressure to make binding contracts in secret ahead of time. And finally to have a consultation which is real, and which ensures our health and that of our children and grandchildren.

We have been on a program of STP (BOB/44) raise public awareness Stall events throughout Oxfordshire Towns and City along with constructive disruptive challenge to CCG , Oxfordshire Health Trusts , Healthwatch !! and Oxfordshire County Council HOSC !!! .