Owl doesn’t want to sound alarmist but this news doesn’t sit well with the recent posts Owl has made on the preparedness and funding of public health, and of general health funding in Devon. Let’s hope Leader John Hart has a better grip on this than he has on flooding.

By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor 8 March 2020 www.telegraph.co.uk

Devon has emerged as the worst affected area for coronavirus outbreak as the government released the first breakdown by local authority.

Devon and Torbay councils have so far seen a combined total of 18 cases, including one parishioner who tested positive after attending a Holy Communion service at St Mary’s Church in Churston Ferrers.

The church has since been closed for a deep clean, and pupils from the nearby Churston Ferrers Grammar School are also now receiving lessons online after a student was diagnosed with coronavirus. 

The Rev Prof Gina Radford, a vicar in south Devon who was formerly the deputy chief medical officer for England, said she hoped to merge her skills and experience in both roles to help both the physical and spiritual help of those impacted. 

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” she said. “To be able to bring my skills and experience from one role into my new role is an enormous privilege.”

Priests have been told they can suspend the sharing of the chalice during Communion and do not need to shake hands with the congregation. 

At least six schools and two GP surgeries have been closed in Devon and East Devon District Council’s Blackdown House headquarters in Honiton, Devon was shut for a deep clean after a member of staff displayed symptoms after returning from a high risk country. 

Elsewhere, Greater London collectively has a total of 51 cases spread out between the 32 districts, with Kensington and Chelsea council the worst hit local authority in the capital, with eight cases. Ealing has five confirmed cases and Barnet, four. 

Outside of the capital, the commuter belt and home counties have also been hit with high number of infections. Hertfordshire has 13 cases making it the highest local authority but not the highest county.

Eight cases have been reported in Hampshire, including a pupil of the Winchester sixth-form college and boarding school Peter Symonds College, whose alumni include Ben Ainslie, the British sailor, model Alexa Chung, and MP Caroline Nokes.

A spokesman said there were no plans to close the school.

“We are issuing all members of the college community with advice about preventative measures such as hand washing,” he said.

“At present we see no reason to make any significant college wide changes and, should that situation alter, we will issue immediate information and guidance.”

Brighton and Hove has seven cases including the third person to be diagnosed in Britain, businessman Steve Walsh, who contracted the virus at a conference in Singapore before passing it onto five britons who were staying at  French ski chalet.

A clear north/south divide also emerged in the figures with, around 68 per cent of cases appearing in the south, compared with 19 per cent in the north and 13 per cent in the Midlands.

Manchester also has five cases, one of whom is believed to be a Royal Mail worker. 

The regional breakdown was based on 244 cases, but the number has since risen to 273.

The number of cases is now doubling roughly every two days and experts warned that many more people may have the virus but do not realise it, or are self-isolating at home.

Dr Tom Wingfield, a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: “While the majority of cases in the UK are still in people who have had travel to high risk areas outside of the UK or known contact with someone confirmed to have coronavirus, we are likely to see an increase in the proportion of cases without any relevant travel or clear contact history over the coming weeks.

“The evidence from multiple countries suggests that the great majority of people with COVID19 have only mild symptoms and will soon get back to full health.

“Indeed, in the UK, some people with mild symptoms are self-isolating and being managed at home. It is important that those at highest risk of more severe symptoms and illness, such as people aged over 60 or those with diabetes, chronic heart or lung conditions, or impaired immune systems, are especially vigilant.”

Owl’s earlier post on Flybe pension fund explained the lack of safety net, outlined the problems, and advised staff to contact the trustees. This article gives a bit more information. 

Patrick Collinson  www.theguardian.com

Trustees say there is £80m hole in scheme and no protection for workers at collapsed airline

The 1,310 members of a Flybe pension fund have been told that there is a hole of up to £80m in their scheme and no government safety net to protect them as it is based in the Isle of Man.

The British Regional Airlines Group pension scheme had assets of £138m but liabilities of £217.7m when valued in December 2018 on a “buyout” basis, according to a note put out by its trustees after Flybe’s collapse.

Usually, with pension schemes in the UK, employees qualify for 90% protection from the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) if their company is declared insolvent, while retired members are 100% secure. But the trustees confirmed that no such protection existed for the collapsed airline’s workers in the scheme, although it added that “the lack of PPF coverage has been regularly communicated to members (most recently on 10 February 2020)”.

The scheme’s large deficit does not affect the majority of people working for Flybe at the time of the collapse, as it is largely a historical fund comprising the pension savings of staff who were at Manx Airlines, British Airways CitiExpress and other brands acquired by Flybe, plus some of Flybe’s own staff. It has been closed to new members since 2002.

But the scale of the funding deficit will cause alarm among the 1,310 members, who now face a nervous wait to learn what will happen to their pensions as Flybe is wound up.

In December 2018, Flybe acknowledged that there was a significant shortfall in the pension plan, and began to make special contributions of £250,000 a month to close the gap. But the recovery plan for the scheme required Flybe to make the contributions every month until 2030 – which will now not be forthcoming.

In a note to members, the trustees of the scheme said: “The trustee and Flybe put in place a 12-year recovery plan that was intended to complete 1 December 2030. So far, in accordance with the recovery plan agreed with the trustee, Flybe has paid into the scheme 12 monthly payments of £250,000 and a separate payment of £830,000 on 28 June 2019.

“However, in light of its administration, it is anticipated that Flybe will not be in a position to meet the next monthly payment of £250,000 due at the end of March 2019.”

But the trustees said they were engaging with the Connect Airways consortium, which acquired Flybe in February 2019, about what funding it would now provide.

It said: “The trustee and its advisers are engaging with Connect to determine whether Connect will be in a position to honour its obligations under a guarantee that the trustee negotiated with Connect in respect of Flybe’s funding commitments under the recovery plan.”

The emergence of the Isle of Man base for the pension scheme – and the lack of protection for scheme members – has alarmed pension experts. Last week the former pensions minister Steve Webb, now at the pension consultants Lane, Clark & Peacock, said: “The creation of the Pension Protection Fund was designed to stop this happening, but the Flybe case shows that there are still gaps in the safety net. The government needs to do more to alert workers whose firms would not be protected by the PPF so that other workers do not end up in the same position as Flybe staff.”

Devon’s NHS continues to be in a financially precarious position and must make more significant cuts to operations, in order to break even by 2024.

Over £400m must be slashed from Devon’s NHS by 2024, from an annual budget of £2.6bn.

Claire  claire-wright.org

That’s the main message from a report that will be examined by members of Devon County Council’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee, next Thursday (12 March).

Devon’s NHS has been in a financial hole for many years, described as being in the top three most financially challenged health areas in the country, for much of the last decade.

But matters appear to have deteriorated and it seems that NHS England may now consider our local NHS to be in the top two most financially challenged health areas in the country.

From April, Devon’s NHS is under orders to save over £100m by next March, after which there must be a programme of swingeing cuts until at least 2024, overseen by NHS England.

Sustainability and transformation plans were set up some years ago all over the country to implement the government cuts agenda, which forced NHS organisations to make savings to the tune of £30bn nationally.  This is the latest iteration.

The scrutiny challenge

I have tried my hardest to try and keep track of these local savings via my role on the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee, but the reality is that the NHS can be incredibly opaque – and each time I asked for a paper on these cuts, the committee has been given no more than a cursory report of vague areas where local NHS services were making savings.

It has been frustrating and quite wrong given the committee’s legal role in examining changes to health services, on behalf of local people.

I have been aware of private health scrutiny briefings on this issue for a few weeks and emailed committee chair, Sara Randall Johnson in January, asking for a paper to come to the March meeting.

There was no reply to my email.

Will Devon’s NHS be open about its response to the financial challenge?

I attended the most recent private briefing two weeks ago, which was enlightening and concerning.

After asking Philippa Slinger, chief executive of what is now called Devon Together (previously known as the Success Regime and various others) some questions about the timing and intention relating to forthcoming cuts, I eventually got agreement for this issue to come before our March committee meeting.

To be fair to Philippa herself, she gave me the impression of being as open as she could be.

Importantly she was willing to appear before the scrutiny committee as soon as possible.

It’s unthinkable to me that the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee – as the only legal check on health services in Devon – may not have examined this issue, where it SHOULD be examined, in the public domain, with the debate recorded by webcast, BEFORE the next round of cuts starting next month.

Waiting times have soared

Over the past decade nationally and locally, waiting times have soared and more people than ever (who can afford it) are opting to go private for treatment because of long waits.

From simple treatments such as physiotherapy for a sports injury, right the way through to paying around £13,000 for a hip operation.

The presentation for Thursday’s meeting states: “In line with savings made in previous years for the system to break even by 2023/24 recurrent savings of between £99m and £108m are required every year.”

The presentation also states that the main challenges are focused on catering for a growing and largely elderly population in the county.

The most pressed area of the budget is acute care (such as at the RD&E or Plymouth Hospital for example).

The presentation refers to the impact of Devon’s NHS being both short of staff and short of cash:

• 300 people routinely waiting for more than a year for treatment when the target is 18 weeks
• 12 times as many people waiting over six weeks for key diagnostic tests than should be
• Eight out of 10 hospital beds are used for emergency purposes
• Devon’s population is set to grow by 33,000 in the next five years and by 2030 there will be 36.5 per cent more people over 75 years compared to today
• 25 per cent of children in Devon are overweight or obese and this rises to 33 per cent by the time they leave primary school

Bed cuts

The paper states: “If the way beds are used is not changed, the number available for planned, low risk treatment and operations will soon be zero.”

But over 200 community hospital beds have been closed in the past few years, and hundreds more acute beds in the area.

Unfortunately, the numbers of paid care workers have still remained a huge problem, leading to significant delayed transfers of care (hospital discharges) from the RD&E Hospital, in particular.

Senior doctors have been saying for a long time that we simply don’t have enough beds.

According to the Kings Fund the total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 to 142,000, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.

The Fund states that most other advanced health care systems have also reduced bed numbers in recent years. However, the UK currently has fewer acute beds relative to its population than almost any other comparable health system.

Thursday’s committee paper does not refer to the annual NHS increment which plummeted to around one per cent from around six percent, in 2010.

This will, of course, had a significant impact on how the NHS is able to deliver care.

Areas for action

I had hoped for a bit more detail on how Devon’s NHS were going to manage around £100m of savings in the next financial year but I’m unable to find anything approaching informative detail on this, which makes it quite hard to scrutinise effectively, on behalf of local people.

However, the presentation outlines the broad areas for action as the following:

• Transforming out of hospital care and integrating community services
• Reducing outpatient appointments by 30 per cent
• Address the challenges of increasing demand of hospital beds
• Consideration of creation of a major diagnostic centre in Devon
• Travelling further for planned care, such as a hip operation
• Widening access to online GP consultations
• New technology monitoring equipment supporting people to live independently in their own homes
• Support more people in their home and community and avoid urgent admissions to hospital
• Improving cancer outcomes
• Improving mental health services through a ring-fenced investment fund
• Shorter waits for planned care through protected capacity
• Reducing health inequalities
• Setting minimum requirements for community based care to reduce pressure on emergency hospital services

So Devon’s NHS is being requested to make further cuts at a very difficult time.

A long-term lack of paid carers are hampering hospital discharges

The desire to avoid hospital admissions and to get people out of hospital quickly is long-held one but is increasingly hampered by a significant and long-term lack of paid care workers, especially in the Exeter and East Devon area.

The massive government funding cuts to adult social care has also meant the closure of many care homes and a big reduction in the number of people who are now receiving paid personal care.

The impact of much of this falls on unpaid carers looking after loved ones.

There are a raft of recommendations on this in a scrutiny review I chaired which also comes before the Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee, this Thursday.

Public health budget pressures

As for Mr Hancock’s oft repeated mantra of investing in ‘prevention’, by which he means public health (preventing people from getting ill in the first place), Devon County Council’s Director of Public Health, Dr Virginia Pearson summed it up at January’s budget meeting:

She said almost none of the budget now goes on prevention. Almost all of it now goes on treatment because of government funding cuts.

Devon County Council still at risk of not providing enough nursing care or personal care

Finally, the council’s latest risk register has now been published for Thursday’s meeting. The following risks are among those recorded as ‘high’:

• Inability to recruit appropriate qualified adult social care professionals
• The council fails to meet its statutory market sufficiency requirement for nursing care
• The council fails to meet its statutory market sufficiency requirement for personal care

I find it very sad that our incredible NHS, which has been the envy of the world, has been brought to this.

The pressures facing Devon’s NHS are not of the fault of staff. They are as a result of government underfunding, forced cuts and the demographics of age and demand.

For the government to put Devon’s NHS under the cosh even MORE ruthlessly than in previous years will cause hardship. To those who need services, the most vulnerable and of course the unpaid carers who look after them.

It’s even more worrying at a time of a predicted coronavirus epidemic.

I see my role as a member of Devon’s Health and Adult Care Scrutiny Committee, is to ensure as much information reaches the committee to be examined in an open and transparent way, so that local people’s interests are being served as they should be, at least from a scrutiny perspective.

The committee meeting starts at 2.15pm on Thursday 12 March.

You can pick up the webcast here – https://devoncc.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/455423

The agenda papers are available from this link – https://democracy.devon.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=3467&x=1

This is an offering from one of Owl’s followers, inspired by John Hart’s previous “words of wisdom” as recalled earlier today. 

“It is no surprise that Devon County Council Leader, John Hart, is ‘off–message’ from the official Conservative party line on flooding! Although such officeholders should be aware that central Government intends to double spending on flood defences in this week’s budget (in the light of the deluges that have devastated huge swathes of this country and, indeed, this county), many government officials seem utterly off-track, appearing not to be up-to-speed!

Many would find the recent off-hand comments by Councillor Hart offensive, by implying that the solution to flooding in Devon lies in a self-help attitude by a modern day dad’s army of individuals, villages and Parish Councils!

Presumably such voluntary work by the Devon masses will exonerate Devon County Council from any blame, fault or responsibility leaving them ‘off the hook’!!

Many find it offish to offload flooding problems by passing responsibility and they hope that DCC coffers have not run dry for such crucial, important issues?

Government officials must remain focussed on current affairs – it is a definite turn-off for politicians to become detached from reality and to display an off–planet attitude!!”

The government risks “another Carillion” if it does not get behind the reforms put forward after the firm’s liquidation, a report from the Institute for Government has warned.

Carillion collapsed in 2018 holding more than 400 public sector contracts.

www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk 

The IFG report, Carillion: Two years on, claimed that, despite signs of progress, the government had not consistently taken up the Cabinet Office’s guidelines to the way outsourcing contracts are designed, awarded and managed.

Authors Tom Sasse, Colm Britchfield and Nick Davies found that that departments “regularly ignore these sensible guidelines around publication of commercial ‘pipelines’, about how risk is allocated between government and suppliers, and how bids for contracts are selected”.

This meant that the government was “still signing risky contracts which may well collapse”.

The IFG report also noted that the Cabinet Office guidelines do not apply to local government and public bodies, including the NHS, despite those organisations being responsible for more than £100bn of procurement spending.

The report called on the government to:

• Name a Cabinet Office minister who is responsible for improvements in outsourcing.
• Use this summer’s spending review to give the Cabinet Office funding to support and scrutinise contracting by departments.
• Extend contracting training to local government, the NHS, and other public bodies.
• Equip the new Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority with the statutory powers recommended by the Kingman review, including to force changes in company accounts rather than applying to court to do so.

The report suggested that the Cabinet Office had done well to establish its new guidance in Whitehall and roll out training, at a time when the civil service had been under substantial pressure. “The department has improved its relationship with big suppliers, the reforms have wide support from industry and there is some evidence that the guidance is being used directly to change poor behaviour by departments.”

However, many suppliers still complained of poor practice, the IFG said. “Several departments continue to ignore aspects of the new guidance, and many have not updated their internal policies. There is little evidence of improvements to the way government assesses risk and balances cost and quality. And scrutiny of departmental plans is not yet rigorous enough, meaning good practice is still dependent on individual ministers and senior officials.”

It suggested that there was little awareness of the reforms beyond Whitehall, in local government and public bodies, including the NHS. The report said the Cabinet Office currently had no remit or budget to extend the reforms beyond central government.

The report said: “Carillion’s collapse was…. a stark illustration of a rotten corporate culture: the company took imprudent risks, acquired huge debts, and disguised its problems with aggressive accounting practices.

“That the company was able to behave so recklessly for so long demonstrated that the system of checks and balances was wholly inadequate.”

The report noted that Carillion might yet prove a crisis large enough to spur action. It said five inquiries into how to strengthen UK corporate governance had been launched since the company’s collapse; several had returned serious proposals for reform.

“Implementing recommendations from these reviews – and ensuring no company can get away with such behaviour in future – is essential if government is to show it has truly learned the lessons of Carillion,” it said.

Boss of Welsh plant vows to undercut Hinkley Point

The boss of the £14bn Horizon nuclear project has told ministers a new power station in North Wales could produce electricity at half the price of Hinkley.

John Collingridge  www.thetimes.co.uk 

Japanese industrial giant Hitachi has been trying to build a power station on Anglesey since 2012, spending more than £2.5bn, and wants a new funding model for nuclear that would slash costs but heap more risk onto taxpayers.

EDF’s long-delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point station in Somerset guarantees the French power giant a controversial price of £92.50 per megawatt hour.

Duncan Hawthorne, boss of Horizon, is understood to have written to Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s influential adviser, saying it could produce power at £55 per mwh — dropping to £44 if two more reactors were added. Hawthorne said it would produce 20 terawatt hours of electricity a year — enough to meet the entire power needs of Wales.

Ministers consulted last year on a new funding model for nuclear, the regulated asset base (RAB), but it is unclear whether it will be included in Wednesday’s budget. The model, used by Heathrow and the £4.2bn Thames Tideway “super sewer”, lets investors receive returns before a project is built. However, that means households and business would be paying for the plant years before it was generating electricity. Last year, Hitachi suspended significant work on Horizon after funding talks with the government broke down.

Hawthorne told Cummings that the power station could be connected to the grid by 2028 and help cut carbon emissions. Ministers have yet to publish a promised energy white paper and face a steep challenge to replace ageing coal and nuclear power stations while achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. A boom in electric cars is expected to pile huge strain on the power grid.

Most of Britain’s nuclear fleet, which is co-owned by EDF and Centrica, is due to close in the next decade, depriving the UK of a stable slice of carbon-free power. Companies including Hitachi and Rolls-Royce also want the RAB model to be used for a fleet of small nuclear stations.

Readers will recall that Devon County Council Leader, John Hart’s solution to flooding, is to encourage a modern day dad’s army of individuals, villages and Parish Councils, where they care, to do more for themselves. Self-help, he said, is going to be the order of the day.

Is he  “off message” with his Conservative Party Leadership? 

The government is to double spending on flood defences in this week’s budget after recent storms caused havoc across the country and drove thousands from their homes., according to:

Toby Helm Political Editor  www.theguardian.com

The government is to double spending on flood defences in this week’s budget after recent storms caused havoc across the country and drove thousands from their homes.

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will announce an increase from £2.6bn to £5.2bn in spending on flood defences between 2015 and 2021. He will tell MPs that the money will give protection to 336,000 homes in England and allow 2,000 new flood and coastal defence schemes to be built.

The announcement will be a centre-piece of Sunak’s first budget, which he is determined will focus not only on measures to combat the spread of coronavirus but also on national infrastructure to reduce risk of flooding in England by 11% by 2027.

This follows grave warnings from scientists who have demanded far greater investment and Boris Johnson’s aim to “level up” the country.

Ministers said the extra spending would reduce the needed planning for future disasters, and warned that extreme weather would become far more regular. Last month Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis swept across the country bringing rain and wind gusts of up to 97mph and triggering more than 190 flood alerts.

More than 500 properties were flooded and about 25,000 homes left without power. A week later Storm Jorge followed, which in some areas caused more than a month’s rain to fall within 24 hours.

But Sunak – who is expected to delay announcing a far wider national infrastructure strategy until the summer or autumn – is coming under intense pressure to spend much more on the environment and the climate emergency to ensure the UK meets its climate targets.

On Sunday, on the eve of the budget, the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank publishes analysis showing an additional £33bn a year must be spent on measures to tackle the climate crisis if it is to meet its target of cutting carbon emissions to zero by 2050. Investment in low-carbon transport alone – including more infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, improved railways and better facilities for cyclists – would have to rise by £12bn a year, and spending on low-carbon homes and other buildings would need to be increased by £10bn annually.

The huge sums would not only help tackle climate change but would also deliver an economic boost and help Johnson deliver on his ambition to “level up” the country, IPPR says.

Last summer the Tory government signed into law a commitment requiring the UK to bring all greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero, replacing the previous pledge to reduce them by at least 80% compared with 1990 levels.

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband, a co-chair of IPPR’s Environmental Justice Commission, said the budget needed to put climate change at its heart.

“This will take investment, but making these decisions will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, improve our natural environment, cut air pollution and make Britain a better place to live. It makes economic and environmental sense. The time to act is now.”

In order to hit net zero within 30 years, the UK will need to be running on renewable energy with industry using mostly carbon-free processes. All homes and other buildings will have to be fully insulated and public transport will need to be greener, and more efficient.

Currently the government spends around £17bn a year on measures related to the climate and environment which, the study shows, would not even be sufficient for the government to meet its previous target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. IPPR calculates that it would need to spend an additional £11bn just to meet that previous target.