Why we need a Fair Deal for Housing and Communities
Ian Shires
Liberal DEMOCRAT Activist Learn more
Government childcare announcement: More Conservative chaos hurting families
The case for a radical, liberal left
Why we need a Fair Deal for Housing and Communities
Government childcare announcement: More Conservative chaos hurting families
The case for a radical, liberal left
The NHS is NOT; as Labour would have you believe ; terminally ill.
by Ian Shires on 1 February, 2015
In “weaponising the NHS” (Ed Milliband’s words not ours) Labour has concentrated people’s attention through the media on Hospitals and the performance of Hospital NHS Trusts in delivering the Health Service in England. The scale and intensity of the challenges facing the urgent care system are recognised as going beyond the capacity of any one individual organisation resolving it themselves. Chucking money at it won’t solve the problem. The answer lies with making more effective use of the resources we have. What is needed is concerted and coordinated action to bring together partners across the health and social care system at a local level tailored to the needs of the local area.
Action by the current Coalition Government to bring Public Health back into Local Government thanks to pressure from the Liberal Democrats is beginning to take effect. Bringing together Hospitals, GPs, local Community Health Care and the Local Authority’s Social Care is key to plans for integrating resources being progressed through Walsall’s Health and Wellbeing Board.
It’s a massive task and it’s early days yet. But as those of us who attended Walsall’s Health and Wellbeing Board’s Development Session last Wednesday could see progress is being made. Agencies which once worked in isolation are now coming together, sharing information, sharing responsibility, making better use of the resources that exist.
It’s not the be all and end all of plans. With people living longer the costs of adult social care continues to rise another work stream of the Board is to promote policies to improve overall health and wellbeing helping to help people stay in their own homes longer be treated and cared for within their communities thus reducing pressure on hospitals.
Evidence that this plan is beginning to work came to light at the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel which took place last Thursday, the day after the Health and Wellbeing Development Session. The Panel received a joint report from the Clinical Commissioning Group, Walsall Healthcare Trust and the Local Authority which provided a description of the circumstances which had lead to the declaration by the Trust of the recent “internal major incident”. In it there was constant reference to all the agencies working closely together to reduce the effects of this winter’s pressures across the whole system. The hospital did not close to admissions or ambulances.
It needs this rubbish Government to collect some taxes and give the NHS what it needs. It’s not on its knees, it’s on it’s back! We can’t even get a pen out of the stores now, you know absolutely nothing man. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Everyone working in health and social care is doing an incredible job in difficult circumstances each in their own service sector. The point I’m making is that you need to put in place a plan at the local level which brings the different elements closer together making better use of the resources that are available. Sure more money is needed to take into account the fact that people are living longer which in itself adds more pressure to an already stretched situation. Just chucking money at it without having an integrated plan is not the answer. If you fail to plan you will plan to fail. Don’t shoot the messenger, I want to see a properly funded well organised integrated health and social care system which is agreed and held to account locally to suit local needs not a one size fits all system parachuted in by mandarins in Westminster.
But by transferring it to local government without increasing resources (in fact, the coalition policy is to cut local government -thatcher did not trust it and the liberals have fallen for a classic Thatcherite policy) it is a cut – in whatever way you look at it. And, how can you be happy with Walsall Manor?
Did I say I was happy with The Manor Hospital? I thought what I was saying was that I was encouraged by the green shoots which were beginning to show due to the effect of the integration which is taking place within Walsall’s health and social care organisations. Closer working between hospitals, community nursing teams, GPs, residential and nursing homes and social care.
Everyone working in health and social care is doing an incredible job in difficult circumstances each in their own service sector. The point I’m making is that you need to put in place a plan at the local level which brings the different elements closer together making better use of the resources that are available. Sure more money is needed to take into account the fact that people are living longer which in itself adds more pressure to an already stretched situation. Just chucking money at it without having an integrated plan is not the answer. If you fail to plan you will plan to fail. Don’t shoot the messenger, I want to see a properly funded well organised integrated health and social care system which is agreed and held to account locally to suit local needs not a one size fits all system parachuted in by mandarins in Westminster.