Draft recommendations by Stafford Hospital Trust Special Administrators

[Spelunker]

I noticed on the BBC news that our elected member le frog had managed to find his way to the market square.
Nothing to do with the cameras I suppose?

 

[Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt]

What did you expect? They were hardly going to publish their report and say, 'Hey guys, read this, it's a load of shit'.

There is still lots to play for here, that may yet scupper the current plans. Revelations about the real state of affairs at North Staffs and particularly New Cross, which will doubtless be revealed before long, could well come to Stafford's rescue.

Oh I agree, I wasn't expecting them to say it is rubbish but I also wasn't expecting them to actually sound that convinced that they thought it represents a good deal, I mean their performance was truly oscar material

The saying goes that you "can't polish a turd" well they had a damn good crack at it

 

[proactive]

Oh I agree, I wasn't expecting them to say it is rubbish but I also wasn't expecting them to actually sound that convinced that they thought it represents a good deal, I mean their performance was truly oscar material

The saying goes that you "can't polish a turd" well they had a damn good crack at it

That's accountants for you.

Send them into the wilds of Staffordshire and there's no stopping the tap, tap, tap of their calculators.

 

[John Marwood]

The bottom line is a health service has to be paid for

Either we accept that taxes must rise and we pay more

Or we sit around and watch the big company leeches continue to slide in with Government approval, privatising, and creating a pay on demand service

A situation most healthy people fail to grasp

And most healthy people become unhealthy at short notice sometime in their life, and this is the time when pay on demand becomes most unaffordable

It will take a brave and honest politician to stick that in their manifesto and stick with it

However, the myopic voters may only see their way to removing such a person

 

[Gramaisc]

Dear Constituent,

Proposals for the future of Stafford Hospital have been published by the administrators. They will now be consulted on until 1st October.

The full proposals can be found at this link - http://tsa-msft.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/TSA-Draft-Report-Volume-1-Main-report.pdf. The dates of all the consultation meetings can be found below this letter along with a summary of the proposed clinical model for Stafford.

In summary they are:

• Stafford Hospital to remain an acute District General Hospital treating more than 90% of patients currently treated there;
• Consultant-led A&E to remain 8am-10pm as currently; severe emergency surgery cases (estimated at 2-4 per day out of 160 attendances) will be taken to regional hospitals such as UHNS Stoke.
• Much closer working with the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, which will help with recruitment and retention of staff;
• No consultant-led maternity. Consultant-led ante- and post-natal services to remain.
• No in-patient paediatrics (childrens’ services). Paediatric assessment unit to remain with development of a "paediatrics at home" service.
• New frail elderly assessment service.
• Elective surgery day cases and orthopaedics to remain with more being done at Stafford than currently.
• High Dependency/Critical Care Unit Level 2 (currently Level 3) to enable critical patients to be intubated and ventilated. Very serious cases would go to (eg) UHNS.
• New non-acute community beds for patients who need to remain in hospital close to home.
• Cannock Hospital to remain with more services brought to it (currently it operates at only 40% capacity).

I welcome the fact that Stafford will remain an acute District General Hospital with consultant-led A&E. I also welcome the new service concentrating on frail elderly people. However I will fight with all my strength to retain consultant-led maternity which I and constituents consider essential, together with associated paediatric services. I also contend that Stafford needs the current level of critical care as part of national critical care infrastructure. I will continue to argue all this with the administrators and with the Government.

There is no doubt that the work of Support Stafford Hospital has been hugely influential in shaping proposals so far, which are a considerable improvement on those put forward in February. But, for the sake of current and future generations in the Stafford and Cannock areas and further afield, we need to continue this work to persuade the administrators and the Government that these maternity, paediatric and higher-level critical care services are vital for our local communities.

A great deal has been achieved by local people working together. Let us finish the job.


With best wishes,
Jeremy Lefroy

 

[shoes]

Hmmmm not great news but unfortunately largely expected. If this is to happen (and I should imagine if it does there will be many more twists, turns and protests along the way - 2018 is a long way off) then more detail must be provided as to the extra capacity needs of Stoke, they already say they are overstretched, especially in A&E.

If I was the Labour party candidate for Stafford I'd be lobbying Ed Millimetre to confirm that should they win the general election in 2015 that this decision will be completely reversed and that acute services will remain - that would be the way to be an absolute shoe in for an important swing seat come the General Election - bye, bye Le Fraud, close the door on your way out.....

A choice between voting labour or losing vital hospital services.

Stop the planet, I want to get off

 

[tek-monkey]

You could always vote for one of the other parties? Sod all point as they can't win, but that's democracy for ya.

 

[Gramaisc]

A choice between voting labour or losing vital hospital services.

Stop the planet, I want to get off

If you believe that a Tory vote is a vote to save the NHS from the moves back to privatisation, then you are already on another planet.

 

[John Marwood]

REVENGE

 

[kilmaccumsey]

I totally agree it was the managers , the government targets , pressure on staff , it was terrible , but why is it always nurses who are targeted !!! Things have improved dratically , what I disagree with is jb continues to lie .... The vase incident was a one off . We should be proud the staff have turned that place round ,

 

[tek-monkey]

Whilst I admit I don't read tabloids, choose my own online media and generally ignore the mainstream sites, I'm not sure I've ever known anyone blame the ground staff? They have too much to do and not enough time or people to do it, as always it is the bean counters at fault.

 

[Becky Draws]

I've worked in big multinational companies and it is almost always the front-line staff that get the kicking. The middle and upper management set these ridiculous targets and goals, then they can blame the poor grunts when these arbitary targets aren't met. Then it's not THEIR fault that the targets weren't met, it's that your counter-staff weren't selling hard enough or nurses not fulfilling their rounds in the 5 minutes or whatever that they are given per patient (I don't know how nursing works but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some sort of targets like this), and they can sit in their offices far far away and look at the figures and tut and moan about how you are all failing the company but give themselves a pay rise because they helped set up a Twitter account for the company.

They don't actually have to try and convince a the person who has only rented a car for a day to buy an entire tank of fuel and if they don't take it you stand to lose out on your £500 worth of commission that you worked so hard to get and makes up a third of your pay. Because it's your fault that you didn't try hard enough.

(I used to work in car-rental and it was brutal towards the end of my time there. I had a -£8k difference in pay one year because they moved our goal-posts and targets and made it damn near impossible to achieve, despite having to hustle even harder. I was never a high pressure seller, I did ok but not through forcing people to buy stuff, some of the people I worked with used sharky tactics and I was embarrassed to work with them. btw if you want some car hire tips I'm happy to answer questions about it possibly in another thread.)

Anyway I digress.....the nurses, while they possibly were negligent, were probably driven to it by impossible targets and understaffing.

 

[gilesjuk]

Lefroy had better enjoy his remaining time in power, he'll be gone at the next election.

Although council tax doesn't fund the health services locally the status of the town is diminished and so we should be expecting tax reductions as a result of this. People will have to drive further away to for services and to visit their families, last time I look fuel and public transport wasn't free of charge.

 

[gilesjuk]

Anyway I digress.....the nurses, while they possibly were negligent, were probably driven to it by impossible targets and understaffing.

Exactly right. The management at Mid Staffs decided they could do better without council interference, became a foundation trust, messed up big time and the local people all suffer the consequences while these managers move on to another job (with their generous final salary pensions intact too probably).

 

[shoes]

Lefroy had better enjoy his remaining time in power, he'll be gone at the next election.

Although council tax doesn't fund the health services locally the status of the town is diminished and so we should be expecting tax reductions as a result of this. People will have to drive further away to for services and to visit their families, last time I look fuel and public transport wasn't free of charge.

Good luck with that, the MO for council tax is the fewer services you have the more you pay.

 

[Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt]

Lefroy's re-election campaign for 2015 will read something like:

"Welcome to Stafford, vote for me and get a downgraded drop in clinic (but not at night) health service whilst HS2 rips through your Countryside with absolutely no benefit to you. You know it makes sense"

 

[shoes]

If you believe that a Tory vote is a vote to save the NHS from the moves back to privatisation, then you are already on another planet.

I think you may have misread that one G - I meant a choice between the NHS but also Labour or no NHS and A.N.Other party.....

The kinda choice which makes you think that voting is a waste of time.

Saying that, if DC is standing for the Conservatives at the next election then my vote will definitely be going elsewhere, the man is a waste of space. The vote certainly won't be goin labour's way though.

 

[tek-monkey]

I think you may have misread that one G - I meant a choice between the NHS but also Labour or no NHS and A.N.Other party.....

The kinda choice which makes you think that voting is a waste of time.

Saying that, if DC is standing for the Conservatives at the next election then my vote will definitely be going elsewhere, the man is a waste of space. The vote certainly won't be goin labour's way though.

So where it will it go? And do you think it will make a difference? Don't you live in deepest Toryland now anyway?

Just draw a cock on the ballot, you know you want to!

 

[Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt]

The bottom line is a health service has to be paid for

I agree, as do high speed rail lines and nuclear balistic missile replacements. Funny how there is apparently plenty of money for that.

N.B.

NHS England 2013 budget =£95bn
Estimate cost of HS2 =£70bn+
Estimate cost of trident replacement = £100bn+ £25bn decommissioning costs
Overseas aid budget = £50bn

I guess it all depends on your priorities.

 

[shoes]

So where it will it go? And do you think it will make a difference? Don't you live in deepest Toryland now anyway?

UKIP, probably :p

No idea tbh, I honestly have no idea who to vote for. We need a Shoes party.

I do indeed live in deepest Toryland, but we don't have a Tory party to vote for. We have a party who is kind of Tory but could best be described by one of Boris's recent outbursts:

"great supine, protoplasmic invertebrate jellies".

Just draw a cock on the ballot, you know you want to!

Don't tempt me!