Local Blog: Heatherwood Hospital Petition Great Response‏

The petition by Russ Bryant asking the Prime Minister to Intervene in the Underhanded Closure of Heatherwood Hospital has now closed.

It was a very big response with 2,631 Signatures. Russ is now waiting on a response from numbers 10. He expects the health minister to ask the Health Trust about any potential closure of the hospital and then they will reply to the petition (the department for health details are here).

I would like to give a personal thanks to Russ for setting up this petition and facebook campaign. Bracknell Standard and Green Gabbles who also covered this petition.

And well done to everyone who signed this petition, every signature really counts.

Local Blog Heatherwood Hospital Petition Reminder

Russ Bryant Number 10 Petition which asks the 'Prime Minister to Intervene in the Underhanded Closure of Heatherwood Hospital' can be signed here http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ascothospital/

The deadline to sign up by is by 12th January 2010. The Petition currently has 2,424 Signatures.

Please do sign this petition so that Russ can reach his target of 2,500 Signatures.

Local Blog - Questions For South Central Ambulance Service After Weak Performance‏

I attended the Reading Housing, Health & Community Care Scrutiny Panel in order to raise some questions after a recent comment left on this blog here. This was chaired by Redlands, Reading Lib Dem Councillor Daisy Benson, she has written a report on this meeting here.

This was after the Care Quality Commission rated the South Central Ambulance Trust performance for attending calls on time as 'Weak' See Bracknell Blog story here.

The South Central Ambulance trust gave a detailed presentation of why they had preformed as 'weak' in the report and explained how they were going to meet the target. The main reasons given were;

1. Increase in Demand from many area of society (i.e. Drunks and nursing homes, end of life.), Psychiatric referrals.

2. Effective 90 second drop in call time due to changes in the way the call is measured (i.e. from the start of the call not when the ambulance is sent). This required an improvement of 26%, the service achieved 19% improvement.

3. Difficulties in recruiting staff as many services were recruiting staff (including Australia) at this time to meet the new standards.

4. Degrees now required when the service could previously train the staff themselves.

5. Their own heart attack data was not correctly recorded.

6. Blood pressure was not always recorded.

7. A&E waiting effect.

After the presentation I asked a few questions.

I asked two questions the first was 'Does the pay structure of the ambulance staff adversely effect the recruitment and retainment of staff. And if so can pan and incentives be improved by offsetting against the high cost of cover/agency fees?"

The reply was quite long and included information about the agenda for change and detail about recruitment issues as listed above. (Which is the pay rate structure used by the service). They also added that they had recruited 300 additional staff.

I then asked "I do know about the agenda for change and the pay band structure but I am concerned about retaining staff as I am aware that this is an issue for some stations?", I was informed that it was not in Reading (perhaps I should of asked about Bracknell, however this was a Reading meeting so I didn't). I was also told that they have just recruited 17 more staff in the West Berkshire area. I do regret not asking about ambulance station Bracknell itself especially after the chair Councillor Daisy Benson did allow me to ask another question.

The South Central Ambulance is however confidant that they will meet the call targets (at the moment they are within the target but the winter months are normally harder to achieve). The service is also adding or added a new call centre service which allows better coordination between the 3 call centres and joined up emergency response allowing each sit to cover the other when busy.

I believe the representative from the Trust were very open and honest. The Reading councillors did raise a number of questions and there was a lot of concern about making partnerships work with other health related services to improve performance.

I was also concerned that the merger between the 4 counties of Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire that the old ambulance stock purchases for Oxford had delayed the purchase of Berkshire ambulances.

I will keep an eye on this and the other healthcares stories and attend meetings when I can, in order to raise more questions if required.

Readers of this blog may also be interested to read this story on Get Bracknell here http://www.getbracknell.co.uk/news/s/2062437_trust_action_on_child_protection where the NHS Berkshire East has been judged in a review to not be meeting the Care Quality Commission standards relating to ensuring staff can spot child abused.

Also please do go and to sign Russ Bryant Number 10 Petition can be signed here for keeping Heathwood hospital open in light of the Trusts funding issues.

Health Meetings and Climate Change Protest

There are two local meetings that I urge our local readers to attend.


Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

The public meeting by the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Which is holding its annual members meeting on Thursday, November 26th at 6pm at Post Graduate Medical Centre at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough. Presentations will start at 7pm.

This is a great opportunity to make your views known to the trust's Chief Executive Julie Burgess as well as the Chairman & Governors.The bigger the turnout of the public the more it will demonstrate to Julie Burgess and the trust the feeling about keeping Heatherwood and its services.

I unfortunately can not attend however Bracknell Lib Dem PPC, Ray Earwicker who is attending will report back any important developments.

Russ Bryant Number 10 Petition can be signed here http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ascothospital/


*Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny Panel re More Problems for South Central Ambulance Service and Bracknell Healthcare Cover

Daisy Benson Redlands Liberal Democrat Councillor has asked if members of the public can attend a meeting of the Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny Panel. Daisy Benson chairs this meeting and she is concerned that there is ‘Too little accountability in local health services’

This meeting will be held on 8th December at 6.30pm at the Civic Offices in Reading. You will need to contact the Reading Borough Council Committee Services team in advance if you wish to put a question to the Panel. The first items on the agenda is related to the South Central Ambulance Service, there is no need to stay for they whole meeting.

I will be attending this meeting and will report back any important details on this blog.

*Date and details updated

Stop Climate Chaos: 5th December 2010

Meanwhile Bracknell’s Green Party PPC David Young has asked for people from Bracknell to join him in Grosvensor Square at noon for speeches and the march at 1pm to around 3pm/4pm.

David will be wearing a dark green polo necked jumper and a blue jacket, also a Green rosette but only until the train gets to Ascot as he stress that this is not a green party event. He will be in the third carriage from the front of the train.

Details can be found at the stop Climate Chaos Website here

I can also confirm that the Lib Dem leadership will also be joining this march here.

I unfortunately will be away in North Wales and I would have joined David Young at this event. Again as always the more people at go to this event the more impact it will have.

East Berkshire Green Party site can be viewed here

Green Reading Blog on this subject here

Twitter Details here http://twitter.com/scccoalition using hash tag #TheWave and #COP15

Public invited to attend Heatherwood and Wexham Park Presentations

The public are invited to attend the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is holding its annual members meeting on Thursday, November 26th at 6pm.

This will be held at the Post Graduate Medical Centre at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough this can be found at entrance 4. Presentations will start at 7pm.

This will be a great opportunity to speak to the trust's Chief Eexecutive Julie Burgess as well as the Chairman & Governors.

The bigger the turnout of the public the better as this will demostrate the to Julie Burgess the public feeling about keeping Heatherwood and its services.

I unfortunately can not attend however if anyone would like to report back the detials of the meeting I will report this on the blog.

Russ Bryant Number 10 Petition now h 2085 signatures. Please help them keep up the pressure so that and pass this link on to those interested.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ascothospital/

More Problems for South Central Ambulance Service and Bracknell Healthcare Cover

Get Bracknell here (The Standard, Bracknell) have reported on the staffing problems at the Bracknell branch of the South Central Ambulance Service, which added to the Bracknell Blog report here where the independent Care Quality Commission had reported South Central Ambulance Service as "weak".

I think these two issues are related as Staff shortages could be effecting cover. In that mix you can also add the Heatherwood funding issues and the current lack of a Bracknell Hospital/Healthspace. The Ambulance Service is extremely key in Bracknell because the major hospitals (Frimley, Slough and Reading) are that much further away, therefore the journey times are longer.

We really need to see improvements in the local healthcare service because the people of Bracknell are not being well served well enough by the current developing situations at Heatherwood and South Central Ambulance Service. The pay scales for ambulance staff are an issue. The Pay Rates should be increased as we are simply paying for extra staff cover through private crews who cost the tax payer more money anyway. These issues need to be joined up and viewed as a whole.

CQC reports South Central Ambulance Service Weak

Health watchdog the independent Care Quality Commission has reported South Central Ambulance Service as "weak". Care Quality Commission have this year also produced a damning report on Boardmoor Hospital in Crowthorne details of which can be found here on Bracknell Blog.

In the 2008/09 report the ambulance service is shown to be one of the 3 worst in England. Last years report had our ambulance service as being good.

It should be point out that no ambulance service scored "excellent" in the report, two scored good, six fair and three weak.

The main failing on the report was the response time. The report showed the proportion of life-threatening calls not reached by South Central Ambulance service by 8 minutes, or after 19 minutes, was just too high. The report also showed the number of serious non life-threatening calls that it reached after the 19 minutes was higher then acceptable.

The worry for me is that in Bracknell, Crowthorne and Sandhurst we don’t have a hospital which is close for emergency care cover. So by the time the ambulance gets to the sick and injured it is even more important, as the jouney to the hospital is not a short one. Ambulances have very highly trained staff and first class life saving equipment. They have to treat the patient and then transport them as fast as possible to a hospital. These periods are so critical especially when our emergency facilities are so far away from the users.

Because of the continued reduction of services at Heatherwood, we lost our close emergency cover along time ago. I hope this will change one day but this look very unlikely for a long time to come see here.

Instead of the Labour and Tory parties arguing on who will spend the most money on the NHS, would it not be better if all all political parties just worked together on this, to find out why these problems happen. To assist in the provision of any extra ambulance services that is required. We all know there are savings to be made in the structure of the NHS, lets just slim that down and redirect the money, or is that just too simple?


The report can be found below;
http://2009ratings.cqc.org.uk/findcareservices/informationabouthealthcareservices/overallperformance/searchfororganisation.cfm?cit_id=RYE&widCall1=customWidgets.content_view_1

Save Heatherwood Hospital In Ascot for Bracknell Area

Russ Bryant who runs the facebook campaign group to stop the closure of Heatherwood Hospital has setup a petition on the number 10 website.

Please do register your support at the link below,

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ascothospital/

The petition states (Taken from the number 10 petition site);

‘Heatherwood and Wexham Park NHS Trust are slowly closing Heatherwood Hospital by moving services to its Wexham Park Site the trust currently has large debts and It is the belief of many local people that the Trust intends to run down the Ascot site so that it can be sold off. Wexham isn't even in Berkshire how can it be a Local Hospital’

I would like to thank you for your support of the above Campaign if you decide to sign the above petition.

You can read the recent news on the debt crisis on this Blog here andhere.

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

Will the new Healthcare space in Bracknell effect Heatherwood Hospital

There has been a demand for a new health facility in the centre of Bracknell offering an extended range of health services. Plans for a new health centre have now been released and will be known as a ‘health space’. What the public of course always wanted was a hospital but this would prove too costly. This facility will be built in Market Street near Bracknell train station and by built by Ashley House and G4S Integrated Services consortium.

The Berkshire East Primary Care Trust (PCT) (part of the consortium investigating future healthcare provision in Bracknell) and developer Ashley House have unvalued there plans for a new health centre in Bracknell (detailed here).

The new health centre in Bracknell will include cancer treatment and a fitness centre. It should also be offering GP services and some emergency services as well as out-patient facilities but will not have facilities for overnight stay.

The centre should be built in 2011 and will be very close to the Skimped Hill Medical Centre, it will also have space to expand upwards if this was later required.

Meanwhile Heatherwood hospital is under continued review with rumours of word closers or ward moves to Wexham park hospital in Slough.

I do fear that the new (and Welcomed) health space could pave the way for the closure of Heatherwood Hospital which still offers services that the new healthcare centre cannot offer as it has no overnight stay arrangements. For example the case of Sally Ingram daughter Kerry, aged 10 from Warfield, who has regular treatment for brittle bones at Heatherwood (highlighted here).

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.