THE PEOPLE WHO WERE GOING TO PICK UP THE SLACK IN THE COMMUNITY WHEN THE DORSET CCG START CLOSING OUR COMMUNITY HOSPITALS ARE AMONGST THE FIRST TO BE SACKED. IT IS NOW QUITE CLEAR THAT THE DORSET CCG IS LYING & THAT THE CLINICAL SERVICES REVIEW IS A FARCE.
Keep Our NHS Public Dorset was formed by a group of volunteers who met during the Junior Doctors Strike and who anticipated the need for a local campaign group to help save NHS services in Dorset after £22bn of national cuts were announced.
The NHS as we know it cannot sustain £22bn worth of cuts and the Clinical Services Review is merely an attempt to keep the NHS functioning in the face of this devastating attack by Central Government that for the first time elevates cost above clinical need.
Any one supporting the Clinical Services Review has accepted that it is reasonable to cut the NHS by £22bn and is therefore aiding and abetting the ‘bean counters’ to implement their destructive and harmful plans to re-disorganize NHS services.
Up until now Keep Our NHS Public Dorset has tried to educate people about Sustainability & Transformation Plans (STP’s), the Clinical Services Review (CSR) and the 5-Year forward plan. We have listened with interest to what the Dorset CCG (Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group) has had to say and we have taken part in the so-called ‘democratic process’ – but as time has gone on and the more that we have learnt about these things it has become clear that there is very little democracy involved in the process. The Dorset CCG (for example) has spent millions drawing up plans (that no one wants or asked for) and handed £3m of NHS money to McKinsey (a US firm that helps pave the way for privatization) and embarked on a box-ticking exercise to make the ‘public consultation’ the right side of legal. We are not convinced that they have even done that and we predict that the overwhelming response from the people of Dorset to the CSR will be negative. But what if it is? The Dorset CCG can simply ignore the result. There is no legal requirement for them to listen to what the people have said.
Concerned at the lack of public scrutiny, Keep Our NHS Public Dorset recently submitted questions to the Dorset Health & Wellbeing Board
https://www.keepournhspublicdorset.com/hwbb.html
about the ‘unholy mess’ that passes for scrutiny at Dorset County Council. One of the members of the Board said that she had “two lawyers who had worked for 9 weeks trying to work out where responsibilty starts and ends at the Council” and that they still hadn’t worked it out. (tape available).
The story in todays Echo is truly horrifying. AXED – CRUCIAL CARE STAFF ARE FACING THE AXE:
The warm words that appear in the CSR have suggested that our community hospitals can close because more people will be cared for and visited at home, where they would rather be. We are meant to believe that it is more efficient to have teams of care workers driving about and visiting people in their homes. If this is true then you need the community care staff to do it. The Echo writes that:- “council bosses blame axing community rehabilitation assistants from Bournemouth Intermediate Care Service due to £426,000 funding cuts from NHS Dorset CCG.”
Dr Jon Orrell (who resigned from the Dorset CCG) has written about the Orwellian language used by them. “Throughout the document you will see ‘care in the community’ popping up and ‘care closer to home’ as if that is necessarily a good thing. It is all playing with words in my opinion. If you rename ‘care in the community’ to ‘neglect and anonymity’ you have got it closer to the truth. Looking after people properly costs a lot of money and you need more doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants to do it.”
Keep Our NHS Public Dorset have heard many troubling statements over the last few months, attending various health scrutiny meetings. We have heard that attempts will be made to reduce hospital admissions by making it more difficult to get referred to hospital. A GP can refer patients to hospital so if you reduce the number of GP surgeries you can reduce the number of hospital visits. This was referred to as “reducing the number of doors in to the NHS”. So what of this? The Primary Care Strategy. One minute it was there, the Final Draft, and then it was gone – removed from the Dorset CCG website. This plan proposes the closure of up to 2/3 of GP surgeries. It may not be on the CCG website but you can read it here. READ or
https://www.keepournhspublicdorset.com/documents_files/PRIM.pdf
Keep Our NHS Public Dorset never really believed that the CSR is a serious attempt to improve health care for people in Dorset. If you are forced to close hospitals and cut staff then you need to come up with a convincing argument before doing so and that has been that care will move out of hospital and in to the community, nearer to peoples home. The sacking of the very same people who are going to provide that care nearer to home suggests that the Dorset CCG is either being deliberately dishonest or inept.
Damien 07871195761
Steering Committee of Keep Our NHS Public Dorset
www.keepournhspublicdorset.com
Other Press releases
www.keepournhspublicdorset.com/releases.html
Opposition to STPs
https://onthewight.com/isle-of-wight-labour-welcomes-rejection-of-nhs-stp/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/16/street-protests-could-halt-hospital-closures—nhs-boss/
