Research by the Prudential insurance company – though they might want to check the state of the NHS and social care before coming here – unless they are very rich, of course, when that won’t matter.
Best to go to Dorset perhaps.
The list:
1. West Sussex
2. Dorset
3. East Sussex
4. Devon
5. Norfolk
=6. Oxfordshire
=6.Worcestershire
8. Isle of Wight
=9. Suffolk
=9. North Yorkshire
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4801054/Why-West-Sussex-best-place-pensioner.html
Press release
“NEW Devon CCG, an unelected quango, intends to permanently close the remaining in-patient beds in Seaton and District Community Hospital next week (beds in Okehampton will close at the same time and in Honiton the following week).
The CCG has shamefully ignored the views of the community in Seaton, Colyton, Beer and Axminster and their elected representatives in the town, parish, district and county councils, all of whom have protested against this decision. A narrow majority of councillors on Devon County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee, which failed to properly scrutinise the CCG’s decision, has prevented us from formally requiring the Secretary of State to re-examine it.
On the initiative of Cllr Martin Pigott, Vice-Chairman of Seaton Town Council, there will be a vigil outside the hospital on
Monday 21 August
from 12 to 1pm
to protest at the closure of the in-patient beds and express our deep concern about the very future of the hospital. Cllr Jack Rowland, Mayor of Seaton, and I will be supporting the vigil. We shall be supporting Seaton Town Council’s demand that, even at this late stage, Neil Parish MP must intervene with the Government to reverse this decision.”
Martin Shaw
Independent East Devon Alliance County Councillor for Seaton & Colyton
” … Little by little services vanish. Prof Azeem Majeed, head of primary care and public health at Imperial College and a Lambeth GP, has just blown the whistle in the British Medical Journal on the latest withdrawal of a service: many clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), including his own, are banning GPs from prescribing anything that can be bought over the counter. Bristol, Lincolnshire, Dudley, Telford and Essex are among many others issuing the same edict.
At first glance it makes sense not to prescribe what most people can get for themselves, until you consider poorer patients who can’t afford the 22 drugs now banned for prescribing. Majeed says “Low-income families often can’t afford ibuprofen, or gluten-free products for coeliac disease sufferers. A single mother on low pay with two children can’t afford the £10 it would cost for nit treatment.”
Pain relief will be denied for those suffering headache, backache, toothache, migraine, fever or those needing antihistamines for hayfever, treatments for thrush or eye infections. With food banks handing out over a million emergency food kits and Unicef reporting that 10% of UK children suffer “severe food insecurity”, basic but essential over-the-counter medicines are beyond the budgets of households who struggle to provide meals. …”
by Barbara Worsley, Labour MP.
Most people who were rehabilitated in community hospitals will now be hostage to “care at home” and unable to access any other form of care – even residential and nursing homes.
“Seventy thousand older people with complex needs left to fend for themselves: Tory apathy on social care funding could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.
Despite evidence that life expectancy may be stagnating, the century-long rise should be a cause for celebration. However, for too many people – unsure whether they will be able to afford the care they may need or plan for the future – their later years are proving to be a time of fear and uncertainty.
Now we learn there will be insufficient care home places, even if people could afford them: 71,000 more care home beds will be required within eight years – according to a University of Newcastle study – to meet the demands of an ageing population living longer, with complex care needs. But there is little hope that these places will materialise.
Residential and nursing homes are already under unprecedented pressure. By the end of this financial year, £6.3bn will have been cut from social care budgets since 2010, with local authorities facing a £2.3bn care funding gap by 2020. These severe cuts, along with rising costs and problems of retaining and recruiting staff, mean that one in six care homes is now displaying signs of financial stress, and across England residential homes are closing.
And in the coming months, the signs are that things will get worse. The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services has reported that councils will have to cut social care budgets by a further £824m this financial year alone – meaning fewer older people getting the help they need with basic tasks such as washing, dressing and eating.
The Conservatives’ policy of cutting funding and leaving people to fend for themselves is simply not working. It has left us with 1.2 million older people living with unmet care needs, one in 10 facing catastrophic costs, and relatives forced to give up work to look after them. It has also left the Tory “dementia tax” alive and well – more than 70% of people in residential care, who face the highest care costs, have dementia.
If this apathy towards finding a solution for the social care crisis continues, there is a risk not only of insufficient care beds, but of serious care failures.
In Labour’s manifesto, we set out comprehensive plans to tackle the short-term funding gap in social care, promising £1bn this year and £8bn over this parliament to stabilise the sector. But we also recognised the need for a long-term funding solution to meet the needs of an ageing population. As Andrew Dilnot made clear, this must include pooling risks – so that no one is left to face catastrophic costs alone – and raising the means-test threshold, so that no one loses everything they own.
Enough is enough. This government has had ample wake-up calls. Now it must give social care the funding it needs and develop a long-term plan to put the sector on a sustainable footing – so that today’s generation of older people and those to come get the care they need and deserve.”
• Barbara Keeley, Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, is shadow minister for social care and mental health
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/17/conservative-solution-unaffordable-care-crisis
And no community hospitals for any of them who may get ill enough for hospital care before or after entering these homes (should they ever exist) in the eastern part of East Devon, where Seaton and Honiton hospitals close their community beds by the end of August.
Still, Sidmouth millionaire pensioners will be fine in their luxury “assisted care” home at the Knowle when the council moves to its posh new offices in Honiton.
“An extra 71,000 care home spaces are needed in the next eight years to cope with Britain’s soaring demand as people living longer face more health problems, a study has found.
New research predicts there will be an additional 353,000 older people with complex needs by 2025, requiring tens of thousands more beds.
The findings from a team of academics at Newcastle University, published in the Lancet medical journal, revealed that many people over the age of 65 are now living longer but with substantial care needs.
The number of people needing round-the-clock help to feed and dress themselves is predicted to rise by 163,000. For adults over 65 the number of years spent with substantial care needs has doubled between 1991 and 2011. …”
Since this article was written, it has been announced that all Honiton Hospital’s community beds will close on 28 Augusy 2017:
“A BAND of angry residents calling itself Honiton Patients Action Group says it plans to keep hospital beds in Honiton by taking direct action to stop the removal of ward beds and equipment.
The group, consisting of several local patients and their families, say they have become increasingly frustrated at the ‘failure of NEW Devon CCG to listen to the voice of local people and their representatives’.
They claim some end of life patients have already been informed by local GPs that Honiton Hospital will not be available after September and, if they need a local hospital bed, they must be prepared for an out of area transfer to Tiverton, Exmouth or Sidmouth.
A spokesperson for the action group said: “It is quite clear that NEW Devon CCG have never been prepared to fully engage in a sincere dialogue.
“There has been a failure to listen to the voice of local people and our representatives. We believe they decided in advance they would close these beds despite the fullest and proper representations that have been made by locals and their representatives, including MPs, district and town councils. We have tried sitting down and discussing it with them. We have tried large public meetings, marches, deputations and lobbying including the county council. Now we intend to sit down to stop the closure.
“We feel we have been disgracefully let down by the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, by Devon County Council and their local representative Cllr Sarah Randall Johnson, and by Cllr Paul Diviani who seems to be representing no one except himself.
“While they prevaricate, the rundown of the wards has begun and it may well be more serious than they are letting on.
“With the closure of the maternity unit and privatisation of the site Honiton Hospital could be scrapped in the near future – this has happened at 45 other hospital sites.
“Meanwhile there is not a scrap of evidence the promised alternative care system is ready or will be effective.
“As patients we will not meekly accept this and at a time of our choosing we plan to take direct action to prevent the removal of beds and equipment and the stripping of wards.
“This will be a peaceful, non-violent, direct action to prevent contractors gaining access to remove the beds and equipment using whatever peaceful methods we can.
“We are also contacting health trade unions to set up a picket line. We shall invite nurses, doctors and local health groups to join in solidarity, along with Neil Parish MP who claimed he would ‘hold feet to the fire’ to stop the closure. Our MP has become very quiet but this is his last chance to show solidarity.
“When we have finalised our plans we hope that local people and families, all of whom could potentially require these beds in future, will join us to keep up the action as long as we can. We need help and support to organise and publicise this if we are to be effective.
“It is the last real chance for Honiton Hospital and our community and we appeal to everyone to search their conscience.
“While we have life and the will to fight ‘They Shall Not Pass’.”
https://www.viewnews.co.uk/honiton-patients-group-promises-direct-action/
From the blog of Claire Wright – did Diviani and Randall-Johnson know this? Do they care?
“I have seen this SO many times.
A threat to hospital beds. Hospital beds close temporarily due to staffing shortages (because understandably staff leave) and then the permanent closures are brought forward.
What I am not reassured on here is how the loss of the existing beds will morph into the new care at home service and the message on staff redeployment is as vague as ever. Last autumn, I was told by the CCG chair, Tim Burke that around double the number of staff will be appointed… the CCG now talks in terms of ‘redeployment’ and ‘recruitment’ of 50 staff, which is difficult to get to the bottom of, given what we have already been told.
What we also still don’t know (because the CCG won’t tell us) is what happens to those hospitals that lose their beds…
Devon County Council’s health scrutiny committee needs to keep a very close eye indeed, on this issue.
The letter below has been sent to Health Scrutiny committee members:
Your Future Care
I am writing to let you know that we are ready to proceed with the changes to improve care for people across Eastern Devon as part ‘Your Future Care’.
These changes are intended to shift the focus of health and care services to keep more people well and independent at home. Part of this shift will be the redeployment and recruitment of over 50 nursing, therapy and support worker roles to enhance the existing community services in each local area. This will enable the reduction in the number of community inpatient beds across the Eastern locality of Devon.
In order to achieve this safely, we will take a phased approach – working closely with staff and partners – to implement the changes as per the following timetable:
• Seaton Community Hospital week commencing 21 August 2017
• Okehampton Community Hospital week commencing 21 August 2017
• Honiton Community Hospital week commencing 28 August 2017
• Exeter Community Hospital week commencing 4 September 2017 (this is the original closure timetable).
The provision of inpatient services at these locations will cease from these dates. All other services at these hospitals will continue as normal. Patients in these areas in medical need of a community inpatient bed will be accommodated at either Tiverton, Sidmouth or Exmouth hospitals, depending on where they live.
It has become apparent over the last couple of weeks that the schedule for the closure of the in-patient beds at Seaton, Okehampton and Honiton would need to be brought forward by a number of weeks due to the increasing pressures on safely staffing the current configuration of seven community inpatient units.
We have been preparing the comprehensive plans for each area since March 2017 and are confident that moving to the new model swiftly is in the best interests for our patients and our staff. For example, our new Community Connect out-of-hospital service, introduced this Spring, has already led to a reduction in demand for community inpatient beds.
Gateway Assurance Process
As you may be aware, part of the implementation process included a clinical assurance panel reviewing the implementation plans against a series of 30 gateway questions. These were developed to provide assurance of the RD&E’s and the wider system’s readiness to switch to the Your Future Care model.
The Gateway Assurance Panel has given its recommendation to proceed. The workforce HR consultation has been completed and staff have been informed of their new roles and working environments. We have also received the approval of the Equality and Quality Impact Assessments, which took place on the 4th August. We can now commence the redeployment of staff into our enhanced community teams and into the remaining community hospital sites. This change will provide extra capacity and resilience to meet the needs of our local population.
Your Future Care is just the beginning of the work needed to move fully to a model of care which proactively averts health crises and promotes independence and wellbeing for our population.
There is still much more to be done and we at the RD&E look forward to continuing this in partnership with you and our local communities.
Yours sincerely,
Adel Jones
Integration Director”
Says a correspondent in Axminster’s View from …
Still wonder where he had his hip replacement done …
Owl says: 20 people in a hospital ward being looked after by, say, 4 staff – 1 member if staff to 5 people, 3 shifts a day = 12 nursing staff. That’s with FULL staffing (plus, of course, other staff such as doctors, physios, etc). 20 people under their eagle eyes, at least one of them professionally qualified, assessing their needs, watching for deterioration, alert for emergencies.
If all those 20 people are being nursed at home – how would those same 12 staff care for the same 20 people in a dispersed rural geographical area? Which ones would get care from the qualified nurse, which ones the “cheap” alternative? No more staff – because already there is a shortage. And using their own cars (if they drive and can afford one) to get between them all, summer tourist season and winter snow.
In this government’s eyes, land to sell off to fund vanity projects and line pockets is more important than people being cared for when they are sick.
“Nearly all England’s 50 biggest hospital trusts are failing to hire enough nurses to ensure patients are safe.
Nine in 10 of the trusts, which oversee 150 hospital sites, are not meeting their own safe staffing targets, according to analysis by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
The data also suggest nurses are being increasingly replaced by cheaper, unqualified healthcare assistants.
To cope with the shortage of nurses, more than half the largest hospitals (55%) brought more unregistered support staff onto shifts, the figures show. The situation is worse at night, with two thirds (67%) of hospitals using unregistered support staff — which critics claim will lead to higher patient mortality rates.
Janet Davies, chief executive and general secretary of the RCN, said patients can pay the “very highest price when the government encourages nursing on the cheap”.
She added: “Nurses have degrees and expert training and, to be blunt, the evidence shows patients stand a better chance of survival and recovery when there are more of them on the ward.”
A separate study of staffing in NHS hospitals, published in the online journal BMJ Open, found that in trusts where registered nurses had six or fewer patients to care for, the death rate was 20% lower than where they had more than 10.
Hospitals have had to publish staffing levels since April 2014 in response to the scandal at Stafford Hospital, where hundreds died from neglect.
The RCN analysis, which calculates the average fill-rate across the month, reveals the worst affected site was the Royal Blackburn Hospital, which had on duty only three quarters of the nurses needed.
According to the RCN there are 40,000 nurse vacancies. Brexit, low morale, the end of bursaries for tuition fees, and the public sector pay freeze have all been blamed.
The Department of Health said: “Just this month we announced an extra 10,000 places for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals by 2020, and there are over 12,500 more nurses on our wards since 2010.”
Sunday Times (pay wall)
“Devon County Council has confirmed it is looking into the conduct of members of one of its committees following a debate and vote not to refer a decision to close 72 community hospital beds in Devon to the secretary of state for health.
The matter was debated by the health and adult care scrutiny committee meeting at Exeter’s County Hall on July 25.
Among those who have expressed their concerns is Val Ranger, East Devon District Council ward councillor for Newton Poppleford and Harpford.
She says that at a meeting of East Devon District full council meeting on July 26, Cllr Paul Diviani, who sits on the committee as a representative of district councils, admitted he had not asked the opinion of other district councils about whether they wished to refer the decision to close local hospital beds to the secretary of state, and could offer no evidence on that basis that he was representing their views.
At the meeting Cllr Diviani was among those who voted not to refer the decision to the secretary of state.
Cllr Ranger said: “He said he voted not to because it was unlikely that the secretary of state would overturn the decision.
This seems duplicitous on two count. The first for failing to adequately represent the views of the district councils.
“Secondly for assuming the role of the secretary of state by stating there was no point in referring the matter to him as he was unlikely to overturn the decision.
“At the EDDC scrutiny committee on June 22, EDDC’s views and recommendations were very clear; Northern, Eastern and Western (NEW) Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has failed to provide the evidence needed to support their plans.
“However, Cllr Diviani failed to represent those views or the views of other district councils as he did not seek them. He has admitted he voted independently of both EDDC and other district councils, rendering his vote as entirely without integrity in his role at the DCC meeting.
“The vote is an entirely unsafe and undemocratic way of conducting business and brings both EDDC and DCC into disrepute.”
A spokesman for Devon County Council said: “We have received a number of comments, representations and complaints about the health and adult care scrutiny committee held last week and about the conduct of members at that meeting.
“We will be looking at all the points raised by Cllr Ranger and others under our normal procedures to see if there are any issues to be addressed.”
However, Cllr Diviani is confident the investigation by DCC will conclude there has been no wrong doing.
He said: “I take this predictable and entirely politically motivated complaint against me by people who contribute little or nothing positive to the debate at face value, and feel sure that DCC will dismiss the allegations as unfounded.
“I have neither seen or heard anything from Ms Ranger on how her party would address the huge challenges facing the NEW Devon CCG and the NHS.
“As the web cam at County Hall malfunctioned and didn’t record properly, the gist of what I said is as below. I did also explain that my position on that scrutiny committee is by virtue of my being elected by the other leaders of all the Devon districts to represent the county-wide views of the district councils, not just East Devon, and is a function I perform regularly both locally and in London through the District Councils Network where I represent the South West.
“There is a tendency to assume that everything is fine as it is, when it quite clearly is not, and that the government will keep throwing money at the NHS as they always have in the past.
“What that underestimates are the social care costs which are massive, but if tackled correctly will reduce the acute care costs, as evidenced by the Kings Fund report. We will still need our hospital buildings which in Honiton are already being used differently, for example, for kidney or chemotherapy treatments. Staffing is still a problem but that is not building dependent.
“Many of us have made a positive decision to live and indeed work in the countryside and a direct result of that decision is a diminution of accessible services we can reasonably expect the state to provide. When able, it is a price we gladly pay for the quality of life afforded.
“In straightened times, we need to cut the cloth accordingly. As is well documented, the largely under funded cost of adult social care is a significant factor in the problems besetting the NHS where the acute care service is the treatment of last resort, and very good it is too, but with the budget sliced off to the top tier local authority.
“As the truly excellent Kings Fund Report from 2016 made exceedingly clear, sorting adult social care comes first and if we tackle that with the help of the district councils the benefits will flow. The NHS cost pressures will diminish and the money can best be spent where most needed.
“In East Devon we have enormous and justifiable pride in our local hospitals and all our existing towns were well endowed. Costs are, however, never static and will always rise without innovation.
“But here we are talking service industry which is always people dependent and where low wages do not necessarily translate into low cost. Simply put, if one person falls, it will take two people to rectify the situation, and if not rectified speedily, the condition and costs multiply exponentially.
“And speedily must mean access to care, quickly. Our travel times are well known and until they are resolved, we will always need staging posts to either stop people occupying the acute provision when unnecessary or to maintain them in a degree of comfort until they can reach the comfort and safety of their own living space.
“The major flaw appears to me to be the ever present ‘one size fits all’. Flexibility is key and our response should be the start.
“Attempting to browbeat the secretary of state with a demand to overturn his own policies is counter intuitive. I prefer to ask him to rural proof our rural situation before allowing any further reductions in service which we on the ground can see will be detrimental, but our transformers would discount. But that is a local decision which should be made locally.”
Also among those who have raised concerns over the debate and vote at the scrutiny meeting is Claire Wright, Devon County Councillor for Otter Valley Ward.
She has said how she was “disappointed” by the behaviour of scrutiny committee chair Sara Randall Johnson who “appeared to do her utmost” to prevent any referral.
She said: “I am also disappointed with the attitude of the majority of the Conservative group who used a variety of ill-informed views and remarks to justify their determination not to refer, refusing to hear or see any member of the public’s distress, frustration and disbelief at the proceedings.
“The chair’s attitude made me angry and led to a protracted row where I repeatedly asked her why she had allowed a proposal to be made and seconded at the very start of the meeting by her conservative colleague, Rufus Gilbert, not to refer to the secretary of state for health, when I already had a proposal that I had lodged with her and the two officers, before the meeting.”
She added: “When they did what they did at the health scrutiny meeting, the Conservatives betrayed thousands of local people.”
The close vote whether to refer the decision was six votes to seven, with two abstentions. All those who voted with Cllr Gilbert’s motion were Conservative’s.
Cllr Wright, who is seeking advice on what happened at the meeting, concluded: “I am quite certain that with a different approach by the chair the outcome would have been different, and local peoples views would have been respected and acted upon.”
“Labour has accused the government of selling off valuable hospital assets to help plug a hole in NHS finances.
Figures from data body NHS Digital show that the amount of NHS land in England earmarked for sale has more than doubled in the past year.
Analysis commissioned by Labour found 117 sites deemed surplus were still in medical or clinical use.
Ministers said selling land would give vital funds for patient care and free up space for much needed new housing.
The government has set itself a target of selling off enough public sector land to generate £5bn worth of income by 2020.
The NHS is asked to contribute as a major property owner.
NHS property being included for sale includes hospital buildings and some ambulance stations.
But Labour said hospitals were being stripped of their assets and forced into a “fire sale”.
Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “This government’s refusal to fund the health service has seen standards of care for patients drop and NHS building and upgrade works pushed back.
“The NHS needs an urgent injection of funding to make up for years of Tory underfunding, but the answer is not a blanket sell-off of sites which are currently being used for patient care.”
The Department for Health said disposing of surplus land and buildings reduced running costs and it was right to put sites that were no longer needed to economic use.
It said any income generated would be used to improve the quality of the NHS.”
“A secret “fire sale” of hospital land – including dozens of properties still being used for medical care – is planned to bail out the cash-strapped NHS, new documents show.
The Department of Health has quietly doubled the amount of land it intends to dispose of, triggering accusations of desperate measures to plug a big hole in NHS finances.
Details of more than half of the 1,300 hectares now up for sale have been kept under wraps because of “sensitivity” – raising suspicions that many other sites also have clinical uses.
Today’s analysis, carried out for Labour by the House of Commons Library, went through Department of Health data of land that NHS organisations “have deemed surplus” and eligible for sale.
Of the 543 plots, totaling 1,332 hectares – worth many hundreds of millions of pounds – 117 are currently being used for clinical or medical purposes, Labour said.
However, data on 734 of those hectares, spread over 63 sites, has been held back due to “issues of sensitivity”, the analysis found.
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, claimed a long-running failure to fund the NHS properly had forced “a blanket sell-off of sites which are currently being used for patient care”.
“Crumbling hospitals are in desperate need of investment for repair and renewal,” Mr Ashworth said.
“But the Government must provide that investment, not strip hospitals of their assets and force them into a fire sale.
“There has been a huge rise in the amount of NHS land available for sale this year, but for more than half of it the Government are keeping the details secret and refusing to fully answer reasonable questions.
“It all adds to the suspicion that ministers are drawing up secret plans for a fire sale of valuable NHS assets to plug the black hole in their finances.”
The criticism comes as Labour launches a major assault on the Prime Minister’s management of the NHS, warning her tenure has seen rising waiting times, cancelled operations and a growing crisis in social care.
However, the Department of Health hit back, insisting only truly unwanted land would be sold – with the cash raised ring-fenced to improve NHS services.
“There will be no ‘fire sale’ of NHS assets, but we continue with our ongoing efforts to help hospitals dispose of land they do not need,” a spokesman said.
“This will provide vital funds for the NHS to spend on patient care and free-up space for much needed homes.”
Ms May’s adoption of the Naylor report triggered criticism during the campaign. Dr Kailash Chand, the former deputy chairman of the British Medical Association, called it “an outline to sell off the NHS”.
The NHS Confederation then urged the Government to step back, calling for the land to be set aside for homes for NHS staff unable to buy on the open market, because of the housing crisis.
It linked the housing shortage to rising NHS vacancies, with 15 per cent of registered nursing jobs unfilled and 12 per cent of positions at GP practices vacant.
The most valuable site on today’s surplus list is the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, in Stanmore, London, which has a market value of £38.75m.
Other highly-priced locations include the Ida Darwin Hospital, in Cambridge (£20m), two sites at Broadmoor Hospital, in Berkshire (£16.75m and £11m), the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, in Bath (£10m) and Papworth Hospital, in Cambridgeshire (also £10m).
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn, on a visit to Cornwall, will focus on the condition of the NHS to mark the release of performance data up to the point of the Prime Minister’s first anniversary in No 10.
He will say that, after 11 months, nearly 2.4 million people had waited more than four hours for treatment in casualty departments – or one in 10 patients.
Suspected stroke sufferers faced only a 50-50 chance of getting to a hospital within one hour and about 270,000 people had been added to NHS waiting lists.”
“A slowdown in the growth in life expectancy for the UK population has increased profits at insurance and pensions firm Legal & General, which said people were dying sooner than it had expected.
The century-long improvements in UK life expectancy have stalled in recent years, with experts blaming a range of factors such as rising obesity, dementia, stress, a lack of exercise, alcohol intake, as well as government cuts to health and social spending.
L&G’s chief executive, Nigel Wilson, said: “People have been dying much quicker than anyone had expected which as a consequence … gives us extra cash.”
“Underfunding in the NHS has been blamed for a sharp increase in maternity wards temporarily closing to new admissions since 2014.
Data obtained by Labour under the Freedom of Information Act showed that in 2016 there were 382 occasions when units have closed doors, a 70% increase in incidents between 2014 and 2016. Some units have closed more than once.
The figures released today showed across England there were 225 closures in 2014, 375 in 2015, rising to almost 400 last year.
Information from the 96 hospital trusts – out of 136 – that responded to the FOI request indicated nearly half of England’s maternity wards, 42 (44%), were affected by the closures, some of which lasted more than 24 hours.
Ten trusts had to shut temporarily on more than ten separate occasions each.
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for health, said: “These findings show the devastating impact which Tory underfunding is having for mothers and children across the country.
“It is staggering that almost half of maternity units in England had to close to new mothers at some point in 2016.”
Sean O’Sullivan, head of health and social policy at The Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said trusts were right to close wards when not doing so risked compromising safety of the service but stressed that persistent and regular closures were a sign of an underlying problem around capacity and staffing levels that needed “immediate attention”.
He added: “The RCM has warned time and time again that persistent understaffing does compromise safety and it’s about time the government listened to those best place to advise.”
According to a report from February, the RCM states the health service has a shortage of 3,500 midwives with over a third soon approaching retirement age.
A spokesman for the Department for Health, said: “Temporary closures in NHS maternity units are well rehearsed safety measures which we expect trusts to use to safely manage peaks in admissions.
“To use these figures as an indication of safe staffing issues, particularly when a number of them could have been for a matter of hours, is misleading because maternity services are unable to plan the exact time and place of birth for all women in their care.”
The government says the NHS now employees an extra 2,000 midwives since May 2010 and another 6,500 are currently in training.”
http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2017/08/nhs-underfunding-blamed-maternity-ward-closures
Guardian letters
“• Rather predictably, following James Munby’s “blood on our hands” outburst, the NHS “identified a bed” for the suicidal 17-year-old, leaving him to claim, probably correctly, that NHS England would not have acted “as effectively or speedily” without his “outspoken warnings” (Judge’s plea as suicidal teenager is found refuge, 8 August). With new crises being highlighted almost daily, the latest being the closure of maternity wards, and pregnant women being “pushed from pillar to post”, Munby’s example should be followed (Maternity wards closed 400 times as shortage of beds and staff grows, 8 August).
At a time when the “austerity chickens” are coming home to roost, and Labour protests are not always getting the media attention they deserve, he cannot be the only dignitary to be appalled by the current situation. Is it not incumbent upon all judges, archbishops, lords, and even some “celebrities”, to make their voices heard? If the “brand” is indeed to be “reinvented”, royals also could be doing more than “championing mental-health charities” (The royals, a brand reinvented by the millennial generation, 5 August).”
Honiton, Tiverton and Okehampton maternity units are to close, with services centralised on Exeter.
Let’s, say, take Hawkchurch:
Hawkchurch to Honiton – 15 miles, 25 minutes to Honiton
Hawkchurch to Exeter – 33 miles, 53 minutes to Exeter
Source: AA route planner, miles rounded
28 extra minutes – ON A GOOD DAY – to hospital with a maternity emergency.
That’s if you have a car with an available driver – or an ambulance – sitting outside your home when an emergency begins. A very unlikely scenario. And it assumes a clear road and good conditions – not night-time rain or snow, or a blocked country road.
“Under this government, maternity units are understaffed and under pressure. It’s shameful that pregnant women are being turned away due to staff shortages, and shortages of beds and cots in maternity units.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/08/nhs-maternity-wards-england-forced-closures-labour
Hello, Mr Parish, hello.
Owl says: hypocrisy isn’t a strong enough word!
” … Yesterday, 21 MPs [including Swire] issued a letter to Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt MP calling for him to block plans to decommission congenital heart disease (CHD) services at the Trust.
Eight of the MPs joined Dr Jan Till, consultant paediatric electrophysiologist and co-director of children’s services, and Hannah Gibson, mother of a child being treated for CHD at the Trust, in parliament yesterday with a giant reprint of the letter to help raise awareness of the issue.
The letter was sent as more than a thousand patients, staff and supporters prepare to join a demonstration against the plans on Saturday 18 March, organised by three charities that support the Trust and its patients.
The letter outlines how NHS England’s plans are not based on evidence, will destroy some of the world’s leading research teams, will cost the NHS millions of pounds, and will not just affect CHD services but a range of other heart and lung services too.
In the letter, MPs call on Jeremy Hunt to intervene to halt the proposals, as he did the last time Royal Brompton’s CHD services were under threat during the now notorious ‘Safe and Sustainable’ review in 2013.
The letter concludes by adding “Would you not agree that the closure could only be justified if it is clearly set out how this would lead to a better service for patients? To date NHS England has completely failed to demonstrate this”.
Victoria Borwick MP, who signed the letter, said: “MPs have come together from across the political divide to support Royal Brompton, showing that this is not a party political issue. This is a matter of simple common sense. Royal Brompton Hospital offers world leading services as one of the biggest and best heart disease hospitals and is also renowned for its cystic fibrosis care. It is entirely wrong to put this in jeopardy.”
Thanks, Mr Swire – at least we know what your priorities are.
As your second home is in mid-Devon, not East Devon, will you be fighting for community hospitals there? Though, of course, community hospitals ARE remaining in your bit of East Devon but now removed from Ottery St Mary, Honiton, Axminster and Seaton – so no worries for you on that score. That’s Parish’s problem. Though as he has HIS second home in Somerset – and successfully campaigned for HIS local district hospital to stay open there – maybe he’s not too worried either.
Yep – that’s our MP … described as one of a number of MPs from “across London and the south”.
Main home is in Chelsea perhaps – and you never know when you might need a good hospital on your doorstep.
East Devon Watch 