Mount Vernon Cancer Services petition

The target date for return of petition forms is tomorrow - so please hunt around and make sure every signature is returned for inclusion in the count. We want a huge number as our grand total, so every signature is important!

However, it will take time to get everything counted and bundled up, so we will continue to accept late returns for another month. Please send them back as soon as possible to ease our job.

To date over 26, 000 signatures have already been counted, but we want lots more to take our campaign forward. Success will depend on lots and lots of people doing their own bit!



Joan Davis

June Meeting of The Community Voice

Usual time, usual place - 7.45pm at the Post Graduate Centre Mount Vernon Hospital on first Thursday in the month, 7th June. Visitors are welcome, so feel free to come. Park in the carpark it is free.

The guest speaker is Patrick Mitchell, Operations Director of the Royal Brompton & Harefield Hospitals NHS Trust - a very timely speaker as he will be able to comment on the disappointing news that this Trust was NOT one of the trusts to achieve Foundation Trust status last month.

Joan Davis

Update on Hillingdon Hospital

Papers for the May Board Meeting of Hillingdon Hospital noted that it hopes to become a Foundation Trust by April 2008. It achieved over £2m surplus last year, demonstrating its financial stability for the third year running, which it hopes will support its application.

The Outline Business Case for the hospital’s re-build will be considered at the NHS London Board Meeting in June. This the first step in the long process towards getting a new hospital. If the OBC is accepted in June, and the further stages proceed routinely, then it will be around four years before the new hospital opens.

In 2006-07 this Trust had 36 MRSA cases, but this should be considered in the context of 53,587 in-patients in the period. The hospital is now setting up routine MRSA screening for all patients having planned surgery. However the biggest problem is with emergency patients, where screening is impossible because it takes time to do the test. MRSA is widespread in the community so unfortunatly some patients are admitted who already have the infection.

The Urgent Care Centre in Hillingdon is up and running, handling around 40 patients a day. Only those patients needing the special facilities of A&E get passed on to that department.

Car facilities are being improved at Hillingdon Hospital. The Local Authority is introducing some pay and display car parking immediately outside the hospital and plans are in hand to provide two lane access with a drop-off point for both A&E and the main car park.

Patient-Line telephone and television costs are high and controversial. The Hospital’s policy is not to allow mobile ‘phones in ward areas, to prevent other patients being disturbed. It was agreed that these issues will be discussed with the hospital’s “Patients in Partnership” group, a splendid innovation which allows ordinary people to have their say on hospital issues - anyone can join, so get in touch if you want details.

Hillingdon Hospital will be on BBC on 9th July, in a new programme called "Survival" which includes a feature on the hospital’s Neo-natal Unit.

Joan Davis

News from West Herts Primary Care Trust

Board meetings cover a huge range of items. Here are just a few extracted snippets of information - I hope of interest to ordinary people.

The Judicial Review of the public consultation on the future of Hemel Hempstead Hospital is scheduled for 17th June. This stems from the PCT deciding to close that hospital's A&E despite the vaste number of objections from local people. If the PCT's decision is upheld, an Urgent Care Centre will be put into the hospital before the A&E Department is closed.

The PCT has a £51m debt from previous years but expects to break even this year and to repay its debts. Meanwhile there is no spare money.

At the Board meeting there were protests from members of the public about cuts to mental health and wheelchair services - improvements were promised for mental health services as soon as money is available. Withdrawal of home visits for footcare also caused protests - it was acknowledged that this is a cause for concern, particularly for diabetic patients, so this issue is to be reconsidered.

A GP in the audience was incensed that he can no longer make routine referrals for homeopathic treatment nor for treatment at Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, which are now only available for exceptional cases.

The start of the Hertfordshire Acute Services Review has been delayed until the East of England Strategic Health Authority gives it the go-ahead. Watford Hospital is clearly intended to be the main provider of hospital services in the west of the county, but whether the Lister Hospital at Stevenage or the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Welwyn Garden City serves the eastern side remains to be decided.

In a bid to start tackling childhood obesity, a project is underway to monitor at least 80% of Year 6 children before the end of the school year. This issue cuts across many strands of everyday life - junk food, lack of exercise and too much time in front of TV and computers as major factors - and is important because the prediction is that obese children will have poor health as adults and short lives, which cannot be ignored.

Joan Davis

Hillingdon PCT takes the plunge in seeking outside help!

Hillingdon PCT decided today to look to the private sector for help with monitoring its commissioning contracts. This is a significant change from its previous practice. The PCT admits that in the past it did very little monitoring and that its staff do not have the necessary skills to do this effectively.

It is starting with private sector monitoring of just part of its services - the services provided by hospitals. However these services take 70% of the PCT's commissioning budget of £210m, so even small changes in bills for these services could save the PCT a lot of money.

Tenders will be going out shortly, with the decision on which provider to appoint being agreed at a special Board Meeting to be held in public on 29th June.

Implementation of the contract will start in July. This means there should be some tangible benefits within the current financial year. The contract will include training PCT staff in the necessary skills for this function, so the PCT will retain the long-term possibility of choosing "in-house" responsibility.

Contrary to earlier predictions, there will be no staff redundancies as a result of this decision. However, if this project proves successful, it will pave the way for further outsourcing of commissioning functions next year, which could threaten loss of PCT jobs at that time.

Patients' services will not be affected in any way by this change of practice - it is purely a change in how the back-stage jobs are done, or not done - which is generally unknown territory for members of the public.

Joan Davis

Update on Watford Hospital and other West Herts Trust issues

In its financial affairs, the West Herts NHS Trust can almost see daylight ahead after many dark years. At the end of 2006-07 it reached its target of being only £11 million in the red and, having saved £7 million on expenses in the last six months, it can look ahead to a target of £5 million surplus in the current year.

This target must be reached. Achieving Foundation Trust status in 2008 will depend on the Trust balancing its books, which includes repaying the above deficit of £11 million over the next two years. Failure is unthinkable as this would lead to the Trust being taken over, merged or broken up.

So tough decisions must be taken.

Plans to achieve the necessary savings include:

Closure of theatres for elective surgery
Compulsory rostering of annual leave for doctors and nurses
Closure of some surgical wards
The shift of elective surgery to St Albans.
Reducing length of patient stay where possible
And thus bed closures, ward closures and reductions in staff

However another proposal could lead to a new hepatitis service being introduced at Hemel Hempstead, for patients currently being treated at the Royal Free Hospital. This would greatly reduce patients’ travel times, so at least one economy will bring positive benefits too.

Recovering from the Trust's dire position of constant financial deficit can only be accomplished by drastic changes, with much pain for both staff and patients. Community Voice will watch developments closely - but we have to accept the need for change and acknowledge that this is a time for maximum co-operation from everyone involved.

Other snippets from this month's Board Meeting in public include:
1. Judicial Review on the outcome of the Hemel Hempstead public consultation is scheduled for late June.
2. Work on preparing St Albans City Hospital for more elective surgery is already underway and will be completed in August.
3. The number of patients suffering pressure sores has dropped in comparison with last year.
4. But figures remained above national average for both death after surgery and for re-admission after treatment for fractured neck of femur.
5. MRSA continues to be a problem, but 89% of patients identified with the infection acquired it outside the hospital - a reflection of the prevalence of MRSA within the community.
6. Pre-natal classes are being re-introduced, after outcry at their withdrawal. The new service, commissioned from the private sector, is expected to be better and more accessible than the old. 7. The launch of a BME Network will support the 33% of the Trust's work force that comes from black and ethnic minority populations.

Joan

Northwood & Pinner Hospital consultation - our response.

Few issues have raised more passion than the public consultation, recently ended, on the future of the Northwood & Pinner Community Hospital. We would all love to see that building return to its former glory as a thriving local asset, but the dire state of our poverty stricken Primary Care Trust in Hillingdon makes that option increasingly unlikely.

History links us closely with that hospital. It was set up by donations from local people as a war memorial after the First World War. Many of their descendants are still in the area today. Much later, in 1984, there was huge local effort to stop the hospital closing, culminating in a three months "sit-in" and two High Court cases, both of which were decided in favour of the protestors - what a triumph!

Seeing it close permanently as a hospital is no one's wish, but it looks inevitable. Our response has been to try and salvage as much as possible of the intention of the original donors - free medical services remaining on site in the Northwood Health Centre, housed in fit for purpose accomoodation, with safeguards to keep the site focused on provision of NHS services.

We accept that some of the land may have to be sold to support what is kept. What matters is that all money released is ploughed back, not siphoned out, and the site itself is sold only for a purpose with some useful function for the local community. Legal safeguards must be built in to any tenancy or leasehold sale, to avoid exploitation. Freehold sale should not even be considered.
Now we await decisions by Hillingdon PCT, with initial decisions at its Board Meeting in June.

None of the above loses sight of the plight of the former Northwood & Pinner beds, currently in Mount Vernon. Twelve beds were lost in the move there and current accommodation is fine as a stop-gap, but a lot short of 21st century standards for elderly care.

We want those beds to be re-instated and new purpose built accommodation to be provided on the Mount Vernon site. Pie in the sky?? No! Simply the promises given when the beds were moved to Mount Vernon.

We have long memories and now press for promises to be fulfilled - at the earliest opportunity please!

Joan Davis

News about our petition

Our "Save Mount Vernon Cancer Services" petition is coming along nicely, with over 16,000 signatures already. This is encouraging - but only to spur us on to haul in all the signatures waiting to be returned. Nothing could be sadder than to leave completed sheets tucked away in drawers, instead of adding them to the count!

We want the sheets back by June 1st if possible, but will continue to accept late returns for at least a further month, so there is still time for a final effort.

Do please distribute the forms as widely as possible. If you need more petition forms, or have other queries, just phone 01895 636095 for help.

Remember, our aim is at least 70,000 signatures, to match the success of our last cancer campaign in 2004. That is a challenging target - so leave no stone unturned!

Joan Davis

Social care or health care? That is the question!

Deciding who is eligible for NHS care and who must look instead to the local authority for social care can be very contentious. This was agreed by all three guest speakers at our May meeting, representing Social Services in Harrow, Hillingdon and South West Herts.

Such decisions are more than academic since in practice they decide who picks up the bill. NHS care is free and not means-tested, even if the patient is a millionaire. In contrast, local authority care is means-tested and can take a big slice of income from very ordinary people.

National guidance on who qualifies for what is expected later this year. Currently eight Boroughs in NW London use the same criteria in making such decisions. The important distinction is that if nursing care needs are deemed " incidental to a need for accommodation" then Social Services pick up the bill and customers pay whatever Social Services decide they can afford.

This and similar questions made a fascinating evening. We had lots of information about equipment to keep patients mobile and independent, lots of facts and figures about services run jointly by the NHS and local authorities, and acknowledgement by all three speakers that the services is less than perfect and sometimes frustrating for both staff and patients.

Voluntary organisations plug some of the gaps, but often social care is the domain of devoted members of the family, without whom the system would crumble completely.

The speakers all agreed to come again, so these issues will continue to be on our agenda.

Joan Davis

Mount Vernon's Paul Strickland Scanner Centre - an update

Mount Vernon is always full of news. The Paul Stickland Scanner Centre is a wonderful example.

In June its new extension building will be completed, with its new seminar room and offices

August will see its new, state of the art, Picture Archive and Communications System go live. Called PACS for short, this system provides elecronic storage of X-rays and scans, allowing them to wing around the world in just a few seconds, like magic.

December brings installation of a second PET/CT Scanner - few hospitals have even one, and most patients wait for ever for a PET scan - but we will then have two, with only a few days wait.

Aren't we lucky?! Of course all this must be paid for and as this Scanner Centre is a charity it needs funds from people like you and me. But they do make it easy to help. Just look at the options on offer and 'phone 01923 844290 f0r full details:

Monday 7th May - Chenies Spring Walk - 5 miles through the beautiful Chess Valley ending with a free visit to Chenies Manor - just get some friends to sponsor you!

Monday 14th May - Cake and Plant Sale at Mount Vernon - donate or buy as you choose.

Tuesday 12th June - Charity Golf Day - play golf at Moor Park Golf club and enjoy a glitzy day from breakfast to evening meal with prizes and a charity auction - they don't give a price but suggest corporate sponsorship , so this one is not cheap

Sunday 24th June - Cycle Ride on bridleways and canal paths - £10 alone or £20 as a whole family

With so much on offer don't they deserve to succeed?! Do help if you can