Contribution To “Off The Fence”
The local Health Trust has a number of questions to answer concerning their delivery of services – maternity services in particular. I chaired a public meeting on 28th July after the outcry over the closure of the Grange Birth Centre in Petersfield (as well as Blackbrook in Fareham). At that meeting we were all assured by Mr. Bill Shields, Deputy Chief Executive, that this was nothing to do with financial restraint, only with clinical safety. We were further assured that, as soon as sufficient midwives were recruited (and there was to be no holding back on recruitment), the Grange would reopen.
Now we hear that there is “a difficult financial situation affecting the Trust and all of Hampshire” and the Trust has decided to put off reopening these maternity centres because they are subject to financial constraints.
What has happened between 28th July and now? Either they did not have the facts then - or they were equivocating and misleading the public at that meeting. I am afraid I have to conclude it is the latter: I have an internal memorandum dated 21st July from Mr. Shields which says “Hampshire and the Isle of Wight health community has a serious financial deficit and the coming months are going to be very difficult ones as all the local healthcare organisations work together to restore financial stability. …….. Now the Trust needs to help address the Hampshire ... deficit by making savings of around £10 million per annum, £5 million of this is for our own financial recovery this year as at month 3 in our own financial year we are already showing a large overspend.” So what has gone wrong with the management?
How did they come to have so large an overspend after only three months
of the financial year? Why can they not come clean with us about the problems they have?
I hesitate to go public with such trenchant criticism because I know that most people who work in the Health Service are dedicated to doing their best to provide quality health care for the people of Hampshire but this sort of deception and dissembling from a public body – any public body – is quite unacceptable. The Trust owes it to all of us to be frank and open about its difficulties and then look to us to support them. We cannot continue to accept the half truths and false palliatives that we have been offered by the current management and I am going to make it my business to ferret out the whole truth so that we know where we stand.
