7 months on

Circle now have been managing Hinchingbrooke hospital for the past 7 months, we have had a relentless amount of PR stunts by Mr Parsa,Tory ministers and Tory oropaganda "newspapers".
We have learnt just this last week that Circle have made a £4.1 million LOSS and will be getting a bailout from the soon to be defunct NHS Cambridgeshire,
You have to ask.... how and who will the £4 million bailout be paid back to, when on April 1st 2013 NHS Cambridgeshire cease to exist. No one has said that, it will be repaid or not by then or if it hasn't been repaid then the funding will be shared by the CCG's in Cambridgeshire.

We also hear that Circle plan to sell off the land and car park to the front of the hospital to fund a multi storey car park. On the issue of selling land at the site, this has been mentioned before and withdrawn, will it happen again?.... probably

We find here that the Strategic Health Authority, the Tory Health minister and others KNEW that Circle were bad for Hinchingbrooke and that aside of Bailout's for Circle built into the contract (obviously to save face) there are still another 247 staff to be culled from the workforce. We already know that cleaning contractor Mitie have axed staff and cut the remaining staff contracts by 1 or 2 day work per week, after Circle decided to limit the budget for the cleaning contract.
We also know that 46 Nurses have been culled and no doubt more are on the cards

Yet the local media FAIL to publish any suggestion that Circle are indeed...... Failing...
Failing the people of Huntingdon,Failing their Contract and Failing to run OUR hospital properly

It is suggested that Circle are spending £1 million refurbishing the corridors in Hinchingbrooke, so far on my recent visits there, the noticeboards (including Union noticeboards) have been removed for repainting etc. It does say they will be back soon.....  if they happen to remember to rehang them. Cynical me says they wont return to the walls.
Circle also HATE Trade Unions totally..... that includes the Royal Colleges.... sad but true

What is the solution?.......

1st April 2013, the Strategic Health Authority and the PCT are finished, in fact they already have no operational responsibility during the transition to CCG's etc and this began on 1st October 2012.
For me.... NO new projects should be signed off or dealt with by these 2 organisations as like the Circle deal, there is not a body to oversee the contracts. Circle have nobody to keep an eye on them after April 2013 apart from Patients and Activists as, not being a Foundation Trust, don't come under the remit of Monitor....

The only solution for Hinchingbrooke is to hand it back over to an NHS board, with the same funding that Circle have been afforded....this is set at a higher level than the outgoing NHS board were working with, yet they always made a small surplus.The finances need to be returned to January 31st 2012 level and the best investment would be is to give Hinchingbrooke the £38 million to pay off the Historic government induced debt. The naysayers claiming that can't be done, look 24 miles north at Peterborough City Hospital, already bailed out by £46 million and more will follow that.

For me.......    Give HInchingbrooke back to the People of Huntingdon and run it within the NHS.....
Circle have failed miserably already.

Their contract had sufficient funding built in to a) pay off the historic debt, b) have £62 million left to subsidise the hospital with the small surplus and all would be well after the 10 years...... WITHOUT changing anything...

The couldn't fail..... but they already are failing.....