philip

WEST HERTS TRUST'S EMPTY PROMISES CAN'T BE BELIEVED

Pledges of better and expanded services made by the West Herts Trust to the people of Dacorum less than four years ago have been exposed as empty promises.

• Ambitious and heavily-promoted investment plans for Hemel Hempstead Hospital publicised in 2021 have been drastically scaled back
• The costs of rebuilding Watford General have soared out of control
• Watford General's demands have drained away all the money Hemel expected to get from the national New Hospital Programme

• IN 2021, THE TRUST SAID, IN A 'YOUR CARE YOUR VIEWS', PAPER THAT HEMEL HOSPITAL WOULD:

- 'have a new and unique purpose as the site for specialist planned medical care site for people in west Hertfordshire'

- 'broaden its range and volume of care for people with long term conditions'

- 'expand outpatient services for paediatrics, respiratory, cardiology and dermatology'

- 'be the location for an increasing number of ‘one stop’ clinics.'

• NOW - None of these promises of expanded services is likely to be kept 

- Hemel Hospital is facing likely closure, with the land going to housing

-  all or some of the remaining services will move across the road to a Health Campus or Hub in the Market Square in the Marlowes.

- Hospital services will flatline - as our population ages and grows with much more housing

- No guarantee that Hemel's urgent treatment centre, dealing with 50,000 cases a year, will survive the move

-The Council's draft local plan is very unambitious. It just says that the Campus would provide 'hospital and other specialist facilities that serve the wider needs of the town, and general practice facilities to meet the rising demand in the immediate area'

•  If the Campus does not provide expanded services it won't  properly serve the needs of Dacorum for the long-term future

by philip

TRUST IN TROUBLE AS FINANCES FLOUNDER

• A project to build an endoscopy unit at St Albans City Hospital is going to cost 66% more than originally planned - £30m instead of £18m -  and is already running two years behind schedule, the West Herts NHS Trust has admitted
• 'Construction complexities at the St. Albans site have caused delays' to the endoscopy scheme, the Trust Board has been told
• The Trust's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Nursing Officer are 'concerned at the design' of the building and have requested an 'urgent review'
• The St Albans endoscopy fiasco casts fresh doubt on the ability of the Trust to successfully build the much bigger £1.4bn 260 ft facility on the sloping, contaminated Watford General car park
• The Trust's overall year-to-date deficit has hit £11.4m - the worst financial performance of any NHS body in the area.  Meanwhile, the NHS Trust that runs Lister Hospital in Stevenage is managing to break even.
• There's little chance of the current Government review of the 'Forty New Hospitals' giving the Trust the go-ahead for the Watford General rebuild - without a drastic improvement in financial performance

by philip

MP GRABS HEADLINES WITH HEMEL HOSPITAL PLEDGE - BUT WILL THE NHS DELIVER?

• Great local news coverage for MP David Taylor's pledge to push the NHS for a 'community hospital' in Hemel if the current Hemel Hempstead Hospital is closed to make way for hundreds of houses and flats
• Before the election Mr Taylor said the replacement Hemel Community Hospital should have:

- Diagnostic services (e.g. scans and x-rays, blood tests)
- 24/7 urgent care and treatment (the Urgent Treatment Centre with proper out of
hours support for local residents without the need to go to Watford in most cases)
- Treatment for minor procedures (lumps, bumps, hernia, cataracts, bunions)
- Mental health and wellbeing services
- Treatment for vulnerable patients with conditions such as Parkinson’s or dementia
- Patient transfer services
- Full rehabilitation and step down wards - getting local residents back into the
community and near their support networks as soon as possible.

• There is a crying need to expand hospital services to meet the growing demand from our ageing population -  a rise of nearly 40% in the number of over-65s in just twenty years
• Disappointingly, the NHS plans would, at the most, see the limited current hospital services moved from the existing Hemel Hospital site to a Health Hub or Campus in Hemel's Market Square - no mention of expansion to meet growing needs
• What will happen to the 100,000 outpatient appointments and 50,000 urgent care cases a year that happen at Hemel Hempstead Hospital now? Will they still be provided at a new Hub?
• There are no guarantees that David Taylor's ambitions will become reality - Dacorum Health Action Group will keep the pressure up on the reluctant authorities
• 

by philip

DAVID TAYLOR TO OPPOSE REDUCED ACCESS TO HEALTH SERVICES

• Hemel MP David Taylor will take an 'absolute hard line' against 'any changes in the provision of healthcare in Hemel' that would 'result in reduced access to services for residents'
• In a statement to the Berko News magazine, David's senior parliamentary researcher also said Mr Taylor is 'currently speaking to all stakeholders involved in the decision-making process, as well as taking steps to ensure that residents' thoughts and concerns are listened to'.
• The researcher added David 'is meeting with and hearing the perspectives of a varied mix of stakeholders at a high level. He will be very pleased to share more on this once future meetings have concluded, and he has received all the relevant information necessary'
• The 'high level' stakeholders have included the West Herts NHS Trust and the regional Integrated Care Board
• The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement defined 'stakeholder' in 2009 as 'anyone who may be affected by your improvement project.'

by philip

HEMEL HOSPITAL SERVICES FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE - HERE IS THE CHECKLIST

• Dacorum Council and NHS plans to close Hemel Hempstead Hospital and replace it with a Health Hub in the former Market Square mean the hospital services available to Dacorum people face an uncertain future.
• During the Election, Hemel MP David Taylor pledged to push for a Community Hospital for the town.
• As a checklist of what has been happening to our local NHS, and a baseline for might happen in future, here is the tally of services the NHS claimed to be providing at Hemel Hospital just three years ago, in September 2021.
• Some, like the Fracture Clinic, have already been moved elsewhere. Surgery and maternity seem to have disappeared too
• SERVICES LISTED BY NHS AS AVAILABLE AT HEMEL HEMPSTEAD HOSPITAL IN SEPTEMBER 2021:
• Urgent treatment centre,
• Cardiology,
• dermatology,
• diabetes,
• gastroenterology,
• general medicine,
• haematology,
• neurology,
• neurophysiology,
• older peoples services,
• rheumatology,
• respiratory medicine,
• stroke,
• audiology,
• clinical oncology,
• general, colorectal and vascular surgery,
• urology,
• ear, nose and throat,
• fracture clinic,
• children's services,
• gynaecology,
• obstetrics and maternity

How many of these services will be locally available in Dacorum after the move to the Market Square?

by philip

WATFORD GENERAL SAFETY RISKS REVEALED

Safety risks at Watford General Hospital have been kept secret for months  - after the Trust were told about them in an independent report in the spring. Risks not made public until now included:

• Fire doors, signage for escape, electrical testing and inspection and storage of flammable materials which all failed to meet standards in parts of the main clinical building, Princess Michael of Kent
• They had a C or D rating - meaning they contravened laws or guidance on safety
• FOI request by a local resident forced Trust to admit to failings set out in independent Six-Facet Survey
• Why did the Trust keep these risks from the public?
• What is the Trust doing to make patients and staff safer?

Below is the link to the Six-Facet Survey report - look at the 'Statutory' page for Watford General Hospital

2024 Six Facet

by philip