Enough is Enough! Stop the cuts in Brent!

Brent housing crisis hits the headline

Brnet Brent Fightback meeting Wednesday January 9th 7.30 pm

The next meeting of Brent Fightback will be on Wednesday January 9th 7.30 pm at Brent Trades Hall (it says London Apollo Club over the door) 375 High Rd, Willesden NW10 2JR.

The New Year will begin with a renewed assault on our public services which needs a renewed and vigorous resistance. Among the subjects to discuss and plan action over will be:

• The continuing campaign against NHS cuts and the privatisation of our health services. 
• The housing crisis and the effects of benefit caps, bedroom tax etc
• Cuts to the Council's budget and the effect on jobs and services
• Gove's attacks on teachers' pay and privatisation via academies and free schools
• AOB

NHS: NHS NW London is due to give their response to the Shaping a Healthier Future "consultation" on February 19th. A meeting on December 6th of 80+ NHS campaigners from right across London named February 16th as a London day of action against NHS cuts especially the closures of A & E and maternity departments. Campaigns have been invited to send representatives to a meeting of London Keep Our NHS Public on Wednesday January 9th at Camden Town Hall 7.30 pm to firm up these plans and make a final decision between an All London Demo or coordinated local demos.

The Brent 38 degrees group which is working on trying to prevent further commissioning of services from the private sector by Brent CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) meets at 3 pm at the Priory in Belsize Rd on Saturday January 5th and hopes to meet with the CCG at their next meeting which is also on January 9th!

For background information about the state of the NHS it's worth reading these articles:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/dont-send-patients-to-stretched-aes-health-bosses-urged-gps-8422177.html  an article from the Evening Standard on 17th December

This Guardian video  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2012/dec/18/private-healthcare-providers-patients-risk-video  and there are links to several other very pertinent Guardian articles

When A & E departments close, hospitals also lose their maternity services and many other services too. this article from the Mail illustrates the crisis in maternity care which can only worsen if more services are closed: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248592/The-secret-midwife-Psychotic-mothers-exhausted-doctors-nurses-asleep-job-A-whistleblower-reveals-the.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Housing Crisis: The proposed benefit cap, the "bedroom tax" which cuts housing benefit for people with spare rooms and the cut in government funding to Councils for council tax benefit which means that almost everyone, however low their income, will be expected to pay some council tax, are set to cause a housing crisis on an unprecedented scale. Already, families are losing their homes. Brent Council plans to move people to Hertfordshire and beyond, people with box rooms deemed to small to be used as bedrooms are still being charged the bedroom tax. At the last Fightabck meeting, it was proposed to hold a People's Assembly on Housing in February at the Harlesden Methodist Church and to invite participation &/or sponsorship from groups like Cricklewood Homeless Concern, Private Tenants' Rights Group, N18, Shelter, The Councihan Family Campaign, Brent Law Centre and Housing Emergency which includes the Defend Council Housing Campaign. Leao Neto, the minister from the Methodist Church is interested and says it might even be possible to make this a joint event. The local papers are interested.

Councils cuts: The Council's budget setting meeting is in February. Eric Pickles has just announced further cuts to Council funding. Mohammed Butt spent time recently helping out at a foodbank, but what will Brent Council do to join with the people it is supposed to represent to prevent them being ConDem-ed to further misery in the New Year?

Education: The Slithy Michael Gove, having urged headteachers to dock pay from teachers taking part in the current work to rule, has now announced that he is going to do away with the national pay framework and allow schools to pay teachers whatever they like. He's thrown down the gauntlet, but shamefully, the NUT Executive has failed to pick it up. Meanwhile, OFSTED is doing the Government's dirty work by judging popular schools with happy children to be "in need of improvement" thus preparing them for takeover by their mates in the Academy chains. He's also making it easier for Free Schools to get buildings to set up in, whether they are suitable or not. (This item on education represents my personal rant, and is not necessarily the opinion of Brent Fightback - Sarah)

Tell our Councillors to stop doing the ConDems' dirty work

Some Brent Fightback supporters will be outside Brent Town Hall tomorrow, Monday 19th November from 6.30 pm. There is a full Council meeting starting at 7.00 pm and we want to let our councillors know that we  want them to stop doing the ConDem government's dirty work, attacking the citizens of Brent, cutting and privatising our services. It's high time they defied the government and put forward a Needs Budget - a budget that gives details of the services we really need and what they would cost and join with the Council workers and the people of Brent to provide and defend those services.  

Can you ever believe NHS bosses?

This press release guaranteeing the future of Central Middlesex Hospital, was issued in April 2010! You'll see that A & E attendances at CMH weere very nearly as high as those at the much bigger Northwick Park Hospital and had been rising steadily year on year.

A Bright Future for Central Middlesex Hospital

Purpose of this document

We are circulating this document to set out the important role that Central Middlesex Hospital will have as a local hospital. 

There has been some negative publicity recently about the long term future of this well loved local hospital, which has understandably worried local people and patients. We think it is important that we put the record straight.

What are the facts?

Central Middlesex Hospital and its sister hospital Northwick Park Hospital are both part of The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust.  Northwick Park is the larger of the two sites and.provides more specialist services, serving residents from a wide part of North West London and across London.  It is much larger than Central Middlesex as the table below shows:

Table 1         Comparison of Northwick Park and Central Middlesex hospitals (using 2008/09 data)

	Northwick Park	Central Middlesex
Beds	467	173
Inpatients	60,082	29,770
Outpatients	210,131	95,742
A&E attendances	90,870	83,029

Over the past few years the Trust has changed the way some services are organised across the two hospitals.  Generally speaking more specialist services have moved to Northwick Park and more routine work like waiting list surgery has gone to Central Middlesex. 

For example, more planned operations are now performed at Central Middlesex but, on the other hand, Northwick Park now treats patients requiring emergency surgery in Brent and Harrow who would previously have gone to Central Middlesex. 

This approach reflects guidance from Healthcare for London, the programme set up to transform healthcare and improve standards of health in the capital.  This established the principle that healthcare should be localised where possible but centralised where larger scale services where necessary to improve safety and quality.  For example establishing specialist stroke centres at major hospitals like Northwick Park will save 400 Londoners’ lives.

The table below shows how activity has changed at Central Middlesex in the past five years.  Attendances to accident and emergency are up, as are elective (planned) admissions to hospital, non-elective (unplanned) admissions, and numbers of outpatient appointments and procedures.  Emergency surgery has reduced since the service was centralised at Northwick Park in 2009.

Table 2         Activity levels at Central Middlesex Hospital MH from 2005/06

Point of Delivery	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10 (Projected)	Variance between 2008-09 and 2009-10
A&E Attendances	73,754	75,189	80,964	82,525	85,566	3,041
Elective Admissions	16,028	14,730	17,505	17,223	17,178	777
Non-Elective Admissions	14,717	14,126	15,923	15,881	16,032	151
of which Non-Elective Surgery	3,900	3,029	3,238	2,892	2,322	-570
of which Non-Elective Medicine	10,817	11,097	12,685	12,989	13,090	101
Outpatient First Attendances		28,743	28,439	29,532	30,286	754
Outpatient Follow Up Attendances		75,307	70,522	73,295	73,738	443
Outpatient Procedures		443	1,253	1,511	4,582	3,071

We are currently undertaking a public consultation on children’s services with a proposal to establish consultant-led paediatric assessment units at both hospitals that would be open from 10am-10pm and centralise overnight beds at Northwick Park Hospital. 

We have made it clear as part of that consultation that these changes complement, rather than put at risk, the future role of Central Middlesex Hospital, that of an important provider of health services offering 24 hour a day, seven day a week accident and emergency services, urgent care, emergency medical services, diagnostics, waiting list surgery and outpatient services.

What are the future plans for Central Middlesex Hospital?

It is easy to understand why so many people choose Central Middlesex Hospital – it is a state-of-the-art, modern hospital which can easily be reached by local people from Brent and beyond. 

Central Middlesex’s role – and that of other hospitals – will evolve and change as the Healthcare for London programme develops and government policy changes. In the meantime Central Middlesex will benefit from the following developments over the next twelve months:

·       Operating capacity will be increased so that more patients can receive orthopaedic and other surgical treatments;

·       An Urgent Care Centre is planned to open alongside A&E so that GPs can see the patients whose need is for primary rather than emergency care;

·       As part of the changes to children’s services, we will introduce a free relatives’ transport service between Central Middlesex and Northwick Park.  This will make it easier for family members to visit their loved ones who may be treated at either hospital.

·       We intend to develop even better models of care for patients with long term conditions such as diabetes, asthma and heart problems.  It is hoped that services will be more easily available in the community as well as at Central Middlesex Hospital itself which may also house a GP staffed polyclinic on site.

Conclusion

We hope that, after reading this document, local people are reassured that Central Middlesex Hospital remains an integral part of the health service in Brent.  You can continue to be proud of your safe, modern, local hospital that remains the first choice for an increasing number of patients.

If you require further information please contact the Acute Services Review team on 020 8869 3701.

Mark Easton          Chief Executive NHS Brent

Fiona Wise Chief Executive The North West London Hospitals NHS Trust

What do Brent Labour think of Barnet Labour's case against out-sourcing?

This excellent video from Barnet Alliance sums up the case against Barnet's Council's 'One Barnet' policy that will see 70% of council services out-sourced.

Earlier this week the Labour opposition on Barnet Council, deploying a vote of no confidence at an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council, made a strong case against the policy.

They cited:

• The loss of democratic accountabilty via councillors and the council when services were out-sourced
• The poor record of private companies in this area which has included some becoming bankrupt
• The uselessness of 'guarantees' provided during procurement when companies become bankrupt
• Council tax payers' money being used to boost private company profits
• The need for support for in-house bids from the present skilled and experienced workforce
• The loss of those skills to the council  once private companies have taken over
• Deteriorating performance by private companies once the initial honeymoon after the awarding of the contract is over

All these arguments can of course be made against Brent Council's escalating programme of privatiision. In fact the Barnet Tory Council leader Cllr Richard Corneliu, defending Labour charges of an ideological attack on publicly provided services, cited Brent as an example of A Labour Council that was out-sourcing. How could Barnet's strategy be ideological he asked, if Labour Brent was doing the same thing?  He capped this with a claim that Unison was out-sourcing its IT to a private provider.

In today's Brent and Kilburn Times a council spokesperson said that despite the collapse of the 4 borough public realm contract after the withdrawal of Barnet and Richmond, that Brent would go ahead anyway. In a twist to the story, despite the Casino claim in the video, Barnet had decided that the 4 borough contract was 'too great a risk' and decided to go in-house 'with stretch' for waste services that had previously been provided by May Gurney.