NEWS
Hospital
sions ‘should not be made by ministers’
closure deci-
Closing hospital services would improve safety and treatment, according to a briefing paper by think tank the King’s Fund that echoes arguments made by sen- ior health professionals in recent months, including former NHS chief executive Lord Crisp. But it also recommends that the Inde- pendent Reconfiguration Panel should have the final word on closure decisions, not the Health Secretary. Local politics often frustrates attempts to restructure and reconfigure services, despite the urgent need for more commu- nity care and fewer district gen- eral hospitals.
Paper author Candace Imison, deputy director of policy at The King’s Fund, said: “Politicians have an important and legitimate inter- est in how health care is provided locally but too often act as a barrier, rather than facilitating the honest dialogue needed with the public.”
The report authors also suggest that minimum quality standards should be set and if hospitals are unable to meet them, they should be prohibited from providing these services.
Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physi- cians, added: “There is an ur- gent clinical need to reconfigure acute services primarily to drive up quality, as well as to contain cost. The current system is often lengthy and wasteful.”
NHS Confed responds to complaints figures
Multiple complaints do not nec- essarily suggest poor standards of care, the NHS Confederation has said, following the release of detailed information on written complaints.
The NHS Information Centre data showed 148,000 written com- plaints in 2010/11, a 2.4% drop on the previous year. Most com- plaints were about clinical treat- ment and services.
The NHS needs wholesale recon- figuration to achieve cost savings, the Foundation Trust Network (FTN) has suggested. Longer-term contracts would provide more sta- bility for providers and scope for longer-term planning, it says.
Sue Slipman, chief executive of the FTN, said: “The FTN is con- cerned that the system is forcing providers to take short term ac- tions because they are not being given the freedom and flexibility
they need to get resources, includ- ing staff, in the right place, so inef- ficiencies remain. For a number of foundation trusts, the challenge is bigger than a single organisation can solve alone, as a radical re- think about how patients progress through the healthcare system is needed and then services recon- figured to make a streamlined ser- vice work efficiently for the benefit of patients and the bottom line. Many of the financial challenges faced by FTs cannot be solved by a
single organisation working alone. They
require strategic thinking
across the system about the way that services should be provided.
“The financial challenge requires demand to be taken out of hospi- tals with greater provision in com- munity settings. All commentators agree that doing more with less needs to be aligned with doing it in different settings and that this is in the interests of good clinical care for patients.”
The NHS Alliance and National Association of Primary Care (NAPC) are forming a steering group to advance the work of the Clinical Commissioning Coalition, launched last month to support clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).
This steering group will ensure that the new organisation’s con- cerns are articulated to the Gov- ernment, and will also devise and implement mechanisms to allow the coalition to create a represent- ative voice for all CCGs.
Michael Sobanja, chief executive for the NHS Alliance, said: “Over the coming weeks the steering group will come together to de- cide how the coalition will work on the ground.
“We want to ensure that the coali- tion fulfils its main remit of being a truly representative voice for all CCGs as well as giving them the support they need to be success- ful. The NHS Alliance will continue its independent work on other health-related issues and will con- tinue to champion primary care.”
Mike Ramsden, chief executive of NAPC, commented: “These developments are intended to strengthen the voice of primary
care and make it a serious force to be reckoned with in dealing with the challenges ahead in terms of powerful providers and the NHS Commissioning Board.
“Currently the balance of power largely sits with providers, although it is the commissioning bodies that should be determining the agenda. Through this development with the NHS Alliance, we hope now to pro- vide a counterbalance to the exist- ing arrangements.”
Circle Health, which has a rapidly growing role in operating hospitals and NHS treatment centres, could now be set to take over a hospital in Epsom as part of a deal led by the Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Trust.
The other bid is led by Ashford and St Peter’s Foundation Trust.
Circle Health is already due to
take over operations at Hinching- brooke Hospital in Cambridgesh- ire in November. The company is partly owned by its staff, and la- bels itself a social enterprise and the largest partnership of health-
6 | national health executive Sep/Oct 11
care professionals in Europe, but it remains a private company listed on the stock exchange. This has troubled critics, including shadow health spokesman John Healey MP who has said the Ep- som situation is further evidence of the privatisation of the NHS.
Epsom Hospital announced a £38m budget deficit in May and
began a 90-day consultation with staff and unions about job cuts. The plan is to split the hospital trust into two, with St Helier incorporat- ed into St George's, one of Lon- don's largest trusts, while Epsom will be left to new management.
Ali Parsa, Circle’s founder, said he wanted to save the hospital, not shut it down. He told the Guardian: “We are very happy that progressive parts of the NHS are willing to work with us. We have shown that we can deliver productivity improve- ments to the NHS of 13% a year. This is when the NHS sees produc- tivity has fallen by 4% a year.”
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