Trust hides information on waiting times in transparency breach
- Vital information about the performance of Watford, St Albans and Hemel Hospitals has been hidden from the public
- In defiance of transparency guidelines laid down by the information watchdog, the ICO, the West Herts NHS Trust recently removed previous years' Board minutes from its website. The oldest available minutes are from February 2024.
- These national transparency rules state that trusts must publish minutes going back at least three years. This allows the public to compare performance as reported to the Board, including A&E and surgery waits.
- In a further move which shows its determination to prevent public access to this important information, the Trust has, it seems, also ensured that it is impossible to find the previous years' minutes through internet search. Just try Googling 'board minutes West Herts 2022'.
Building experts warn of soaring costs and delays for Watford General rebuild
Two building experts warn today that severe shortage of skilled workers could cause even more delays and higher costs for the planned £1.4bn rebuild of Watford General Hospital - which is already years behind schedule.
- Construction companies last week raised alarm that there are too few workers to meet the needs of the Government's massive national house building push and other projects
- Lack of capacity in the workforce will increase costs and make contractors shy away from high risk projects - like the complicated Watford General Hospital rebuild
- The sloping site and closeness to main clinical buildings make the Watford project complex and costly
- Treasury, who have to pay the bills for new hospitals, will be 'unnerved' by rising costs in an over-heated market - with Watford General a bad case of costs running out-of-control
- Clear new site for West Herts' emergency care and specialist hospital could offer lower cost and risk
The experts, Bob Scott and Trevor Williams, are both supporters of the New Hospital Campaign. Their statements are here:
Release on industry shortages Dec 2024
NHS AND COUNCIL MUST RETHINK PLAN TO CLOSE HEMEL HOSPITAL
Health group says NHS and Dacorum Council must rethink plans to Hemel Hempstead Hospital
- 11,000 more homes are planned in the new Hemel Hempstead Garden Communities - but the NHS plans to close Hemel Hempstead Hospital
- Dacorum Health Action Group (DHAG) says more and better health services are needed for the Borough to meet the future health demands of an ageing population, with nearly 40% more over-65s in the next 20 years
- Instead, the NHS and Council are proposing an inadequate replacement - a Health Campus or Hub in Hemel's Market Square. This single building on a cramped site would be too small to accommodate the expanded services vitally needed for the Borough's ageing and growing population
- Parking would be a nightmare at the proposed Hub. The current Hospital has over 400 car spaces - which would disappear under the plans. Where would patients and their families park at the Hub?
- DHAG says in comments on the draft Dacorum Local Plans the proposals would mean Dacorum Council failing in its legal duty to plan the infrastructure to support the 'required facilities' for future hospital care in the Borough as the population ages and grows
DHAG's response to the draft Dacorum Local Plan is here:
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
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
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
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.'
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?
WEAK COUNCIL PLAN COULD MEAN DOWNGRADE FOR HOSPITAL SERVICES
- Inadequate Dacorum Council plans risk a poorer future for Hemel's health services
- Dacorum Borough Council's local plan needs to be strengthened to prevent the NHS downgrading the Borough's hospital facilities
- NHS services must be expanded to meet the needs of Borough's growing and ageing population (numbers of over-65s will rise 35% in the next 20 years)
- But the Council's draft plan gives no guarantee even that all inadequate existing services will be maintained in the planned Health Hub which could take the place of Hemel Hospital. It says only the Hub 'will likely replace much of the remaining facilities on the existing hospital site.'
- The NHS refuses to guarantee that the Hemel Urgent Care Centre (40000 cases a year) will be maintained or replaced
- The Council needs to stand up for our local hospital services - and not let the NHS downgrade them further
The Dacorum Local Plan is below - see especially paragraph 2.44
Appendix A_Local Plan to 2041 for SPAE
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