Friday, March 28, 2008

Well...............A New post at last...............

The site has been quiet for a while as the Sustainable Hospital Plan is underway and things are looking up for Hinchingbrooke.
Wards are being refurbished, staff seem happier and the Hospital is not going through a bashing from the media.
There was a suggestion last week that there were issues with historic finances but the Chief Executive put those suggestions down..................However.................

It was played out in one of the local papers headlines suggesting that the Trust Board should go.


As the Campaign said in 2006 and again after the Consultation was publicly aired the next hurdle would be the "possible dissolution of the board" which would be in 2 years.
Now you don't need to be a maths wizard to see that this equates to 2009 and 1st April to boot.

With this in mind and with some suggestion that  the Trust would be at "break even" point then there will be interested parties queuing to take over the Boards activities.
The amount of savings, at the time of the 2006/07 consultation was put at £1,000,000, so quite a saving some would say.

BUT...............
should another Trust take over the Board's roles, and there are 3 Foundations Trusts in  Cambridgeshire, what percentage of the £1m are they likely to need to perform such activities? and with that in mind and with there being an "open market" for Foundation Trusts, I would suggest they would be looking at the £1m for their remuneration.

So , there are 2 other alternatives...........................

One, To allow a Private/Community body to take on the Board's responsibility and be accountable to the people and the above still applies, how much of the £1m would these bodies want for renumeration, I guess with a Private Company the £1m would suffice and the other caveat is "would they run the Hospital to how the local people expect it to be"? and "will it be for patients or as is the norm for Private companies FOR PROFIT"?

I suggest on the basis of the ISTC (Independent Treatment centres) which are run by Private companies, they would cherry pick the work and if the current situation is maintained they would get paid for work they haven't done and would not represent good value for money and would NOT add value to healthcare for the people of Huntingdonshire.

I bring this to light as there has already been a proposal by a joint venture which is backed by a Canadian Healthcare company, this company has only experience in the UK with 2  orthopaedic ISTC's and nothing else. 
It has credentials in other parts of the world in places such as Quatar, so you see where this is heading.

They will do work that they get paid for and if you have money then you jump the queue - -
- PROFITS BEFORE PATIENTS - more about this in a later post

OR the final scenario is the Status Quo, keeping the Trust Board who have turned the hospital around and brought it back into balance, that makes the most common sense of all

So when the time comes...................VOTE FOR THE CURRENT BOARD.............