Well that all went wrong.

I've had a really bad day filled with making blood pressure boiling complaints about Wexham Park Hospital's failure to treat my back or even discuss it with me in four days.

I'm far to angry to write any kind of rational article here today, I need to calm down a lot first.

It comes down to getting enough pain management done that I can get out of here and get to a hospital that can treat me.

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till you drop production)

Home; helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Contact me:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Staff Shortages at the Accident and Emergency departments

UGIMME 10 !

BBC News has done some great research and reporting on staff shortages at the Accident and Emergency Departments up and down the country.

I’ve posted the full list on my other Blog;

helpmesortoutthenhs.blogspot.com 

Meanwhile;

Here’s our local league table. Am I alone in thinking that the number of unfilled vacancies reflect the unhappiness staff feel at working in a hospital’s A and E, the quality of life staff have and ultimately the quality of care patients receive?

This league table of shame is in reverse order, so worst first;

 

                            A and E staff   % short   Vacancies

13^th Worst      

Ashford and St Peters               97        -17%        -16

 

23^rd worst

Heatherwood and

Wexham Park                         136         -12%         -17

 

34^th Worst

West Middlesex                        92        -10%           -9

 

53^rd Worst

Royal Surrey                              87          -8%           -7

 

90^th Worst

Epsom and St. Helier             182         +2%

 

100^th Worst

(out of 101! So nearly best in the country)

Frimley Park                           122          +9%

If you were to ask people locally to rank their hospital trusts, you would get a league table fairly similar to this.

If you were to work out quality of treatment/outcomes, I would guess it would be fairly similar to this too.

So, although my headline slogan is still for 10 consultants at St. Peter’s A and E, that’s not enough – we actually need 17 more staff and counting!

UGIMME 10 !

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

Wexham Park Hospital.

Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Foundation Trust is the next door hospital to Ashford and St. Peter’s. There have been more than a few closures, justified by the argument that these hospitals are there to help out.

When Ashford lost it’s A and E – the choice was to go to St. Peter’s or to Wexham Park.

When Wycombe and then Heatherwood lost their A and E’s – go to Wexham Park.

Now, the Care Quality Commission has issued a report saying that Slough’s hospital at Wexham Park is “failing to protect the welfare of its patients and there was a catalogue of failures”. The problems are mainly at Accident and Emergency, where I suspect they can’t cope with the increased number of patients as a result of the closures of the other local A and E’s.

‘Monitor’ who are supposed to keep an eye on Foundation trusts has demanded a recovery plan – although they are much more worried about the big black hole in the accounts. In April they issued an enforcement notice demanding urgent improvements in finance and governance. This is because the trust is heavily in debt and can only propose yet more closures and a massive sale of precious land and property in a desperate attempt to keep afloat.

Tracey Morgan was interviewed locally – she is the chief executive of Age UK in Slough and a Governor of the Hospital Trust – highly critical of the executives and managers. None of that is surprising. Last year, her 87 year old Mother went in to the hospital with a broken wrist but somehow acquired severe facial injuries while there.

It’s gone unexplained and unpunished. Not surprisingly Ms Morgan became active in trying to reform the trust – despairing of the traditional methods she had used before. Last year she sent the managers an e-mail outlining all the same problems the CQC have now raised.

Nothing was done; this is someone who is on the board of Berkshire Care Association, a Governor of the hospital and Chief executive of Age UK.

“I have seen care homes closed, reputations and livelihoods damaged for far less than the findings here”.

Of course, as a ‘Foundation trust’, this organisation has been freed from the bureaucracy of government (democratic) control and allowed to sink or swim with market forces. I don’t see much swimming going on here.

THE TRUST

D

                IS BUST!

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home: helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com

The man with no plan.

Meanwhile at the Ministry of Health (I always imagine ranks of rosy cheeked, jogging, trainer wearing, fruit-smoothy drinking, calorie counting bureaucrats) there is another delayed decision.

They were planning to shut the Accident and Emergency units at either Frimley Park or Epsom Hospitals. Both are the next door trusts to Ashford and St. Peter’s. There’s been protests because they are needed.

If there was any kind of plan you could say that health was being run by a malicious maniac – but there is no plan. It’s just about saving money. Now the minister has announced a delay in taking the decision. The real reason is so that the final decision can’t be challenged in Court – what he is doing is to make it seem as though he is consulting.  If there was real consultation, the decisions would be different. Actually, although the minister doesn't have a plan, I bet the civil servants do. 

Still it’s a reprieve, this is where we are at;

At the moment High Wycombe and Heatherwood have already lost their Accident and Emergency departments – leaving Wexham Park at Slough.

Ashford has already lost it’s A and E, so there is St. Peter’s on the M25 at Chertsey  then the next nearest is West Middlesex in Isleworth. Next is either Frimley Park or Epsom and one or both of those is going.

So the ‘plan’ seems to be that we are left with just Isleworth, Hillingdon, Chertsey, Slough and Croydon.

HELP!

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:             helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
contact:          neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com

Has anyone seen the Myrrh?

THE TRUST

D

                IS BUST!

An old rebel like me has seen it all and fought ‘em all. It comes as a shock to more ‘respectable’ people, when they come up against the government.

Over the last month they have been protesting down in Ascot – it’s probably the richest part of this country. Except that doesn’t mean that everybody there has lots of money.

In fact, there are quite a few people who don’t have much. And a fair number who are now old and sick and in financial difficulties. They probably were hoping for help from Heatherwood Hospital – except that Heatherwood and Wexham NHS Hospital Trust is in financial difficulties – solution?

Shut down the Accident and Emergency – gone.

Shut down the birth centre, rehabilitation ward, and MIU unit – going.

Build a new surgical unit.

Sell off three quarters of all the land.

Here’s the problem – they don’t need a new surgical unit for the area, however this is ‘Royal Ascot’ – lots of rich people wanting quickie private operations. Lots of surgeons wanting to do their private work in exclusive Ascot.

Local people? They don’t count. So the locals have been marching, raising petitions, the Borough Council had a meeting at the racecourse, the Member of Parliament came and made all the right noises. All of them conservatives and me an old lefty and I actually feel sorry for them.

One of the things that angered them most was that the bankrupt ‘Trust’ spent £500,000-00p (that’s 500 grand) on a ‘public consultation’. Only 495 people responded.

That means each response has cost the ‘Trust’ £1010-10p. That’s over a thousand pounds for each person who answered.

Was the questionnaire written on vellum parchment, scented with Myrrh from the orient?  Letters illuminated by rows of short-sighted monks using goldleaf from the mountains of Morne and Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan? A cover of finest Ox hide, beaten and burnished to a sheen of rare luxury? Were the replies rushed back to Slough in swift chariots drawn by the finest white Stallions, the bits clenched between their teeth? The thunder of their elegant hooves hammering out the message; “We listened to you”?

Actually, ‘public consultations’ are not done to consult the public – the decision has already been made. They hold them so that you can’t take them to court for having failed to hold a consultation. As long as they spent the 500 grand and can show that some of the public were consulted, they are in the clear. It would be better to boycott the whole thing to show what a sham it is.

Of course, if they had had any interest in what we thought, what they should have done is have a full public opinion survey or better a referendum in the area of the ‘trust’, with a fair choice of viable alternatives and some democratic input – that’s what a public consultation is.

Trouble is, the public would have told them what they really wanted at Heatherwood;

Re-open the A and E to take the pressure off Wexham.

Refurbish the old wards to use as post-op rehabilitation, which is what they were really for.

Maternity, gynaecology, specialist units.

Expand units for treatment of the elderly – a specialism which we are always told will be a growth area. The money you earn here will pay for the other facilities.

Keep the land for when you need it to build new facilities.

Anyone seen where I left the Myrrh?

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)

Home:       helpmesortoutstpeters.blogspot.com
Contanct:  neilwithpromisestokeep@gmail.com