Heatherwood Hospital Debt Moves into Survival Mode

This weeks Standard report on the move to shrink and consolidate the sites at both Heatherwood and Wrexham Park. This could result in loss of services. This also comes on the back of 157 staff jobs being put at risk as top level negotiations have begun between union representatives and managers.

The trust’s council of governors was informed of this move by chief executive Julie Burgess. The plan is to reduce the site to a smaller footprint which should save money.

While the layout of Heatherwood is properly not efficient the big concern is the removal of services from Heatherwood which could then lead to the sell off of the site to pay of the 10 million owed.

This is a very dangerous time for the hospital care in the Bracknell area as the whole Trust is in survival mode from government watchdog Monitor. Let hope Heatherwood will survive these testing times but I personally fear the worst.

Bracknell Blog previous report on Heatherwood here

Bracknell standard report here

Heatherwood Hospital Debt has Greatly Increased

A recently revelation that Heatherwood in Ascot (serving Bracknell, Crowthorne and Sandhurst) at one point had a debt of £20million.

This debt was revealed during this weeks healthcare scrutiny committee when it was explained that a surplus of £2million in April 2008 then become a debt of £20million by April 2009, but because of a number of cost improvement programmes this will now be reduced to £10million by April 2010. This sum of £10 million seems to me to be a huge number to find for Berkshire East Primary Care Trust that manages a budget of almost £500million.

The trust have claimed that there will be no reduction of services this year however staff at both Wexham Park and Heatherwood hospitals have received letters warning that their jobs are under threat (As reported here).

A source close to me also informed me that millions of pounds worth of invoicing was delayed and some invocing has been refused payment due to the invoicing being incorrect and late.

The trust now have a new Chief Executive Julie Burgess who is now tasked with reducing this debt. This debt makes you wonder how the hospital was managed. The NHS is famous for having a high level of administration and management layers, Perhaps some savings could be made here as management has some blame for this debt as well as IT replacement, temporary staff costs and changes in services and funding arrangements.

The people of Bracknell and surrounding areas have been worried for some time that Heatherwood could be closed one day and this kind of debt management just add to their anxiety.

http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/workforce/nhs-staff-numbers/nhs-staff-1998--2008-overview

Russ Bryant campaigner and resident of Bracknell has set up a group on social networking site Facebook called ‘Stop Erosion of Services at Heatherwood’. This can be joined here.

Bracknell Blog also reported on this here