I make no apology for constantly mentioning the nurses who have been the backbone of healthcare in SWF over the decades.
I’ve previously mentioned the fact that we, at one time, had a brilliant team of district nurses whose forte was providing excellent care to the elderly and the terminally ill. Needless to say, they were targeted by NHS management; they were made increasingly difficult to contact and eventually the team was broken up and what was left of it was moved to Maldon. During the lead-up to this event I was keen to see if additional roles for the team could be found in a way that would please management (by reducing costs) and allow the team to be retained and expanded. I spoke to a very go ahead nurse, Helena Baker, who had ideas ahead of her time. Part of the interview can be found here. Incidentally, although this was recorded some 18 years ago, enabling patients to come home from hospital ASAP in a manner that benefits both them and the patients who are waiting for a bed to become available is now ‘flavour of the month.’
As regards general practice in SWF, I previously mentioned that the PCT ran ‘The New Surgery’ … but, after 5 years or so, it was obliged to hand over the contract. The process was put in the hands of a PCT employee who had already done great harm in SWF – which underlined the impression that the PCT didn’t have the town’s best interests at heart. The local practices were told at the 11th hour that they could apply to take it over – so there was virtually no time to submit a bid. We assumed that this was calculated to damage our chances as our bids were, perforce, poorly coordinated and very hastily put together.
The SWF proposal that I favoured at the time the decision on the future of ‘The New Surgery’ was being decided was based on the ‘John Lewis’ model – whereby the practice would be run by the people who had the best interests of the practice, its patients, and the town at heart. Patients would be integral to the decision making process and would, at last, have power to make changes. That way funds that were intended to be spent on patient care stayed in SWF where, let’s face it, they were much needed!
A small clique of PCT employees unceremoniously rejected the proposals made by the local healthcare professionals at the first hurdle. It decided behind closed doors (as usual) to go its own way and handed the practice over to a private company from Little Chalfont in Bucks – ‘The Practice plc’. This was doubtless the intention from the outset. It left the healthcare community in SWF (and many of the patients) feeling very disgruntled. Instead of the funds available to the surgery being channelled into patient care in SWF a substantial chunk was diverted to satisfy the profit motive and contribute to the CEO’s ‘bright shiny new car fund’. Little Chalfont’s gain was our loss.
I wrote in the Focus at the time that it seemed counter-intuitive to hand this practice over to a company run to make a profit. Shortly after the hand-over we spotted that ‘The Practice plc’ was advertising for an area business manager. The ad said: “This is a multi- site area role East London, Southend, Chelmsford, Harlow where the key deliverables are to maximise income and profit of the business area c 12-15 sites through targeted business development with clinicians and practice teams receptionists and nurses …” So – no prizes for guessing where its priorities lay.
When the news about the fate of the ‘New Surgery’ was announced, the Mid Essex PCT, stung by criticism that there had been no public consultation, claimed that, prior to a decision being made, it had appointed a ‘patient representative’ to advise. The identity of this ‘representative’ was never revealed and he/she made no attempt whatsoever to ascertain the views of the patients of the practice. Despite several invitations to ‘come out’ this unrepresentative ‘representative’ declined to do so … giving rise to the suspicion that he/she was a figment of the PCT’s collective imagination. The PCT, nevertheless, continued to claim that it was ‘open and transparent.’
A meeting was convened afterwards at which Sheila Bremner and Dr Donald McGeachy were asked to explain the circumstances of the ‘New Surgery fiasco’ to a group which included GPs and other interested parties. It was pointed out that the Town Council hadn’t been invited to comment. The late great Peter Wyatt grilled those involved about handing over ‘The Practice’ to a company that had nothing to do with SWF without any meaningful consultation whatsoever (other than with the aforesaid phantom patient representative.) He didn’t spare their blushes. McGeachy said finding a patient representative was a difficult task (inadvertently giving the impression that it had to be someone who would do as they were told) but he refused point blank to divulge their name … so, to this day, this remains a well guarded secret.
Our assumption was that the reason for this subterfuge was that the PCT realised that, whoever took over, would have access to financial information which would lay bare the huge chunks of taxpayers’ money that had been channelled into this surgery to aid its survival at a time when other patients in the town had to make do with services that were being run on a shoestring.
Looking at the wider picture … the PCT, having failed to force my practice to close, turned its attention elsewhere in an attempt to balance the books. It wasn’t long before another SWF practice was in the crosshairs. For further details, tune in for next week’s exciting episode.
Dr John Cormack