New hospitals anyone

I would just be happy to hear that our hospital wasn’t going to close . They are gradually moving departments to a hospital in the city miles away which is very difficult to get to without transport . We no longer have a stroke unit, no children’s A&E ( which i think is unforgivable ) maternity unit now only accepting “ straight forward births” as if anyone plans otherwise ? Idiots !

They will not be happy until it’s closed completely .

Ayes what is sad is what we have lost over the years of austerity; eg. Health Education Service and the Children’s Centres all important in preventative care; shut down or now an impoverished service. If it wasn’t so depressing you could find it amusing that BJ (and Theresa May) talks of austerity as if he/she had nothing to do with it and they are here to liberate us all from it. But we are paying for the banking crisis, and only the bankers (and those who invest in the volility of markets and currencies, Rees-Mogg comes to mind) benefitted from a bailout which we have paid for with austerity! But hey! Looks like BJ has found that money tree that was so illusive for May when questioned by a nurse about the state of the NHS... It is impressive how BJ (think Dom might have helped here!) has dissipated the anger we all felt about the greed of the bankers and redirected the people’s anger towards his enemies, who are not necessarily ours! No not just our parliament or even the EU. What is so sinister is he has us fighting each other... Divide and rule....

ayse yes it worked very well for the first few years until the staffing issues .Now you cant walk in as before but have to go through NHS24 which can take a long time .When my GD broke her arm(she bounced on her bed and straight off)we simply picked her up and went the half mile to hospital.Now we'd have to call ahaead to make sure its open and then they'll find a slot for you ..or alternatively drive the 60 miles to her nearest A& E .Which really isn't good .Generally we have agreat NHS here so I cant complain but the hospital issue has been ongoing since the health board frst decided that everything should be centralised about 12 years ago .Despite the marches and protests and sitouts and hands around the hospital which have largely been ignored by the ehalth board

Ayse.. sorry!

Dido, I agree with you. So many services have been lost or cut over the years. It surprises me that so many folk seem to forget the past and are willing to believe anything they are told at election time.

Current thinking is that large centralised hospitals are more efficient and provide a better service. I’ve yet to see this. Gilly bob is right, too many closures of local facilities have left us bereft of easily accessible services.

Oh, and I agree that banking failures have been brought about by unscrupulous, greedy individuals and companies for whom the bottom line is profit.

People not profit may be a socialist way of looking at the world but in my mind should be the mantra that guides all public services.

This is how PFI works. A private sector firm puts up the money and builds the hospital. The hospital pays the money back over a number of years, usually 20 or 30, as with a mortgage, but I think the interest rates are fixed and high. The private company, usually also ties the hospital into having to have all its maintenance and repairs done by a company associated with the PFI company, this also is usually a lot more expensive than going to competitive tender.

The hospital cannot renegotiate its debt with a cheaper lender or go to a cheaper company for the maintenance or handle it in house.

This way the hospital is drained of money that should be spent on primary care because it is servicing expensive debt repayments and paying over the odds for its maintenance.

Strikes me we have been and continue to be used to provide private companies with profit for little return for us, the ordinary people. No improvement to services either

Nothing wrong with the existing ones !

Maybe not right now, but there will be soon if they cant bulge/expand in line with demands/pressures, and not every hospital is well located in an area that can absorb the extra infastrucure that is needed around a big hospital!

Some hospitals have already expanded beyond what local infastructure can handle. Towns are spreading and expanding and locating large hospitals in the CENTRE of towns/cities isnt always working. New hospitals in satelite towns/suburbs are needed.

Ayse (got it right this time!) I remember many years ago going to a NHS conference where the American business management /communications guru, Tom Peters was talking. I didn’t agree with all his thinking but one commentary stuck with me. He explained that he had seen the US healthcare system working first hand. He said ‘... to whom do we entrust our front line healthcare and that of our families? ... Nurses... to whom do we entrust the education of our children?..Teachers.... who do we fail to recognise as critical for delivering our healthcare.... our children’s education .... provide poor pay, working conditions and recognition? Nurses.... Teachers... don’t make the same mistake we in the USA have made ...public sector doesn’t mean bad management...’

Dido, I wish there was a like button on here

M0nica, your thinking on PFI is spot on. The interest is always very high. On top of that the in house staff are lost to the new provider, usually on limited protection of pay and conditions, so the hospital finds it difficult to withdraw from the contract even if it is failing to match specifications as they have lost the staff budget allocation. It’s a big con!!

It would appear for that the green light has been given to spend £2.7bn over five years at six hospitals:

Whipps Cross Hospital, in Leytonstone, east London
Epsom and St Helier Trust
West Hertfordshire Trust
Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust
University Hospitals of Leicester Trust
Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust

That works out to £90 million a year per trust (if I've done the calculation with the correct number of "0"s), which might just fund six new hospitals over five years.

One of those trusts is my local trust and we've been promised a new hospital or a major upgrade for as long as I can remember - certainly since before the 1997 Blair government. Apparently the expectation is that there will be a new hospital. It hasn't helped that the current government has forced the trusts to sell off smaller units, which means people have to travel further for procedures such as X rays and the hospital itself is far too small. A and E and maternity are beyond a joke. Presumably there is some cash sploshing about in a fund somewhere from the enforced sales.

As I have a personal interest in this, I shall be keeping an eye open for any updates

Do you know, I just do not believe it at all. BJ is getting his ministers to hand out sweeties in case of a GE. And we must not forget that the downturn in the fortunes of public services is down to previous government policies of austerity in the first place.

Look how many millions have been spent so far on HS2 ? For what ?? It's utterly obscene

I completely agree EllanVannin
Isn't it running late and over budget already?

Cannot for the life of me remember which prominent politician said they'd like to scrap the project but I cannot see how ordinary folk will benefit, given the way it will by-pass many large towns which are likely to get poorer train services as a result. Given the cost of train travel now, who, but wealthy business people will be able to afford to travel on HS2?

And isn't video conferencing and net-working meant to be the way forward for businesses and other concerns? ? If people can work at home now rather than go into an office, why do we need such services for face-to-face meetings? (One of the reasons given for the promotion of fast train services.) I'd have to travel miles to pick up an HS2 train service.

Those billions could be put to better use elsewhere.

My local hospital is a fairly new one and within 5 years of it being built it was far too small to cope with the thousands of houses being built - a further 10 years on it just cannot cope at all!

We had a fabulous Minor Injuries Unit in my smaller local town which was marvellous - they closed it of course despite much local pressure - everyone now goes to A&E as you can't be seen anywhere else - wonder how many MP's have their fingers in the Health Insurance and Private Health pies? They have been running our NHS down since 2011 deliberately, so that we the great unwashed won't complain when they sell it off as it will be so bloody bad anything will be an improvement!

Nurses and teachers... we need them the most but value them the least.

Earlier this year in March, this is how Princess Alexandra Hospital Trust in Harlow said they wanted to raise the money for a new hospital:

www.hsj.co.uk/the-princess-alexandra-hospital-nhs-trust/trust-eyes-new-private-finance-model-to-build-hospital/7024578.article

I don't know whether this is still the intention.

It would appear to be PFI Mark 2:

www.hsj.co.uk/story.aspx?storyCode=7021723&preview=1&hash=6FB20F0A07557825BF02EB4788CA0F3E

Interestingly, the EU (via Eurostat) won't allow governments to keep this kind of funding off the balance sheet with regards the national debt. I guess it's just coincidence that this money is promised just as the UK is about to leave the EU .

I watched the whole programme.
It's farcical to expect to build 40 hospitals over never mind how many years unless we have the surgeons, doctors, nurses, other medics, catering and ancillary staff to fill the positions.
Medical staff take years to train. It's all pie in the sky. Wishing over reality.

I am waiting for government , especially local government to realise that the people going to hospitals are ill and many are not capable of using public transport, which will also apply to many visitors. That means it is essential to have sufficient parking and advising people to use public transport, when the nearest station is 3 miles away, the nearest park and ride 2 miles away, requiring long bus rides by ill or disabled people is unacceptable.

In recent years DH and I have avoided using our local hospital and have even paid for private care because the LA and the hospital have advised anyone going to the hospital to allow at least an extra hour for getting there and finding parking. This means that our journey takes nearly 2 hours. We are encouraged to use a park and ride several miles away. Even surgeons coming it to work with operation lists with fixed starting times have faced hefty fines for not parking in an approved bay because they could not find one.

I've just spent a little time Googling past copies of local papers. It would appear that the new hospital promised in my area isn't new money at all. It's been in the pipeline for years, the land has been found, a new spur off the motorway is being built and financing has been planned, etc. All that's happened is that the final piece if the jigsaw has been put in place.

It would be interesting to know whether it's the same with the other planned new hospitals.

I doubt if many new staff will be needed.

A promise means nothing from any politician - no matter what their political party. Treat politicians a bit like a silent film. Watch what they do not the words they would like us to believe.

As I keep saying, there isn’t a great shortage of staff, just too many people for them to deal with. Our schools, doctors’ surgeries, hospitals, roads, are all overcrowded. There has to be a limit to the number of people who can, economically be supported. The only people who are benefitting are builders and owners of supermarkets.

EllanVannin So agree with everything you said