Plans to reduce the public service pension scheme discount rate will raise the Treasury around £2bn from 2019/20. But this means that public sector employers, such as the NHS, schools and local councils  will have to make up the shortfall in pensions contributions – hitting their budgets.

More budget pressure is the last thing that Walsall’s NHS Trust needs right now given the recent news following a damning report from health watchdog the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) which placed the beleaguered Healthcare Trust in special measures as it was judged to be “inadequate” (www.cqc.org.uk/provider/RBK).

One action already taken by the Trust has been to reduce the number of births taking place at Walsall’s Manor Hospital. This action was taken to ensure that the Midwife to birth ratio was being brought in line with the national target of 1:28. The Trust’s ratio is currently 1:33.

Under pressure from Scrutiny: 

Under questioning by members of the Council’s Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel last week bosses at the Trust that this improvement was being achieved by recruiting more midwives and reducing the number of births at Walsall’s Manor Hospital by around 500.

So where have those 500 hundred mums to be gone to give birth? How many have gone to other hospitals like New Cross or Good Hope? How many chose instead to have home births and what impact does this have on Community Nursing and the already hard pressed GP and just how many live in the Willenhall?

Walsall Healthcare Trust is a key partner along with Walsall Council with its Social Care and Public Health responsibilities, so anything the Trust does has a direct effect on other services across the borough. It is of paramount importance that whatever is planned to recover the Trust it must be transparent and it needs to be done in public and it must include Partners if Walsall is to avoid just shifting the problem down the road so to speak. To some extent the problems at Walsall’s Manor Hospital have been made worse because of events further afield at Stafford Hospital and more recently at Sandwell Hospital right on our doorstep in West Bromwich.

Everyone agrees that last week’s meeting of the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Panel really put those responsible for Walsall Healthcare Trust’s predicament under pressure. There was going to be more openness, more transparency better communication.

Fast forward a week to this Wednesday’s meeting of Walsall Council’s all powerful all Tory Cabinet where it was business as normal. They managed to rattle through 17 items on the packed agenda in just 15 minutes.

Was there any mention of the crisis at Walsall’s Manor Hospital? Was there any reference by the Cabinet member for Care and Safeguarding about the concerns he had raised about the knock on effects on the services he is responsible for? And what of the pressures on Health and Wellbeing, the responsibility of the Cabinet member for Public Health and Wellbeing. Were there any words of comfort to the residents of Walsall from her?

In a word NO. Is it any wonder people are disenchanted by those who they task with looking after their interests. It would appear that it’s not just Walsall Healthcare Trust that wants a good shaking down. The town’s toxic Tories have become smug and complacent. Time they were taken into measures. Time they moved on.