Tag Archives: Haringey PCT

Haringey PCT remove out of hours walk in clinic

Posted on by

Harringay online (award-winning local site) alerted me to rumours about the closure of the out of hours walk in facility at the Hornsey Hospital Community Health Centre. A letter arrived at the same time – so here it is in black and white. I have contacted them urgently on this and Cllr David Winskill (health spokesperson for Liberal Democrat council group) is in process of getting a meeting with them.

This is the same sort of shambles as we saw over the proposals they put forward on the Whittington A&E – ill thought out and without consultation. The PCT this time have summarily removed the service – suspended – pending evaluation because it is too expensive to continue whilst the evaluation is going on.

As this service is delivering on one of the promises made in terms of what would be in the new centre to get local people on board – it is totally unacceptable to remove the service – let alone without consultation.

As to cutting costs – well perhaps a few of the high salaried jobs could go in administration instead of a front line service as a first stop. There’s a novel idea!

Dear Ms. Featherstone

Re: Walk in centre at Hornsey Central Neighbourhood Health Centre 

I am writing to inform you about NHS Haringey’s plans for the provision of the 8 – 8 GP led health service at Hornsey Central Neighbourhood Health Centre.

NHS Haringey commissioned the pilot walk in service in April 2010 for people who required medical attention outside of normal GP practice hours; at weekends and also during normal hours but without having to make an appointment. 

It was always our intention to review the service after completion of the pilot phase to see how it complemented the other ways of accessing care, including NHS Direct, our out of hours services and extended GP opening hours. We recognized that we would need to establish whether the walk-in service was the best way of providing urgent unscheduled care and was not duplicating other GP extended hours services or being used as an alternative to General Practice appointments.

The pilot was due to finish on 31st July 2010; however, we extended it for another month and will now suspend the pilot from 1st September 2010 .This is to ensure we have sufficient time to put in place effective communication plans.

We recognize that this temporarily removes a service that has been of value to many patients.  Under ordinary circumstances the preferred option would have been to continue the pilot whilst completing our evaluation.  However, due to a rise in the payment required for the GP out of hours service this is no longer an option for the PCT. 

We have put in place a communications plan to inform the public that the service is no longer available, and signposting them to the other ways that people obtain medical advice and treatment.  These are:

NHS Direct:  0845 46 47

Out of hours service:  020-7388 5800

Seeking advice from your local pharmacist

Accident and emergency centres at The Whittington and the North Middlesex

 I would also like to stress that NHS Haringey is committed to ensuring that Hornsey Central Neighbourhood Health Centre is a key community asset for the provision of Primary and Community Care services in the area.  Services that are already provided at the centre include: GP Services provided by the QMP for their registered patients during normal opening hours and some extended hours, physiotherapy, foot health; speech and language therapy; midwifery and health visiting; counseling; sexual health clinics; minor surgery;  dermatology outpatient clinics and diabetes outpatient clinics. We are working very closely with the Whittington Hospital to provide new clinical services including gynecology and obstetric outpatients. .

Once the pilot has been evaluated we look forward to updating you on future arrangements at Hornsey Central Neighbourhood Health Centre.

Yours sincerely

Tracey Baldwin

Great Ormond Street kept report into Baby Peter secret?

Posted on by

Tim Donovan of BBC London has done a brilliant piece of investigative journalism on the role that Great Ormond Street Hospital played in the Baby Peter tragedy. Read the full report here.

For months I banged on about the role of the health protection team and its management  – on this blog and on the floor of the House of Commons. Everyone leaped (quite rightly) to criticising the Doctor who failed to recognise broken ribs and abuse injuries – but she was a locum.

I, meanwhile, questioned why there was a locum there in the first place. And when I dug  – I found that there was a locum because four senior consultant paediatricians in the child protection health team which was now run by Great Ormond Street had either resigned, gone off sick or had been put on special leave. Dr Kim Holt – was the one put on ‘special leave’ because she was a whistle-blower on the dangerous practises going on in that department – more on Dr Holt’s dreadful treatment follows.

It emerged that the four senior consultant paediatricians (including Dr Holt) had jointly signed a letter to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) management saying that they were so worried about bad processes in the department that children were being put in danger. Sadly – a year later – they were proved right.

Now Tim Donovan of BBC London has discovered that Great Ormond Street Hospital commissioned an Independent Report on the role of the paediatric health team run by GOSH – and its finding were damning. Whilst we all heard about the Doctor who saw Baby Peter and failed to recognise the abuse and injuries – the report found that the conditions she was working under were unsafe. So whilst she may have been inadequately qualified – it was GOSH that had hired an underqualified doctor for such a senior post. Dr Al Zayat was under extreme pressure of work as the department was understaffed. Apart from the four consultants who for different reasons were not there -there was a lack of nurses. There was no information available about children coming to the department. No proper IT system. No Support. And, there was no ‘named’ doctor in the department – a vital role in child protection. Now – I (like everyone else) haven’t seen the report – so this is what I have been told.

But that over-used phrase ‘lessons must be learned’ is useless if facts are kept hidden.

This report never seems to have seen light of day. GOSH are now saying that it was made available to key agencies. But Tim Donovan has discovered that if anything at all was handed over to any investigating authority or agency – it was a summary only.

In the Joint Area Review – the report commissioned by Ed Balls that so damned and led to the sacking of Ms Shoesmith – there was barely a word about the role the health team played. I’ve read it – and we are literally talking about two lines about GOSH.

Given the importance of the role in Baby Peter’s death that the health team (or lack of one) played – you cannot help but come to the conclusion that the role of Great Ormond Street in all of this was suppressed.

I have raised the role of GOSH and the child health team in Haringey on the floor of the House. It is in Hansard. And yet – until now – there has been a deafening silence on this part of the Baby Peter tragedy.  I could not understand why such an important part of the jigsaw had no traction or even real interest from the powers that be. Was Great Ormond Street being protected?

I remember phoning Ed Ball’s office and threatening to raise hell if the treatment by GOSH of the whistle-blower Dr Kim Holt (the paediatric consultant who was and is still on special leave from the health team) was not put right. Ed Balls commissioned an investigation by NHS London (to his credit) but the findings of that investigation are also astonishing.

Whilst the report finds Dr Holt to have a spotless record and to be an excellent paediatrician and recommends that she is gotten back to work – the report also finds a whole series of faults with the management processes and some personnel in GOSH. Not a single recommendation pertains to that part of the findings.

GOSH has failed to re-instate Dr Holt now some five or six months since the findings of that report came out.

Haringey Council, of course,  rightly were first in the firing line as they were the lead agency and Ms Sharon Shoesmith the Executive Director of Children’s Services and the person under the 2004 Children’s Act in the accountable position.

However, the focus of the spotlight on Haringey Council does not mean that other agencies – GOSH, Haringey PCT (who commissioned GOSH) and OFSTED to name but three – should not come under the same scrutiny as Haringey.

The secrecy, the cover ups, the lack of transparency, the refusal to publish the Serious Case Review, the appalling treatment of whistle blowers Nevres Kamal (Haringey Social Worker) and Dr Kim Holt (Senior Paediatric Consultant) and now this vital Independent Report – all mean that we cannot be confident that lessons have been learned at all.

We need a public inquiry!

Cock-up, conspiracy or incompetence?

Posted on by

Lynne Featherstone, Cllr Martin Newton and London Assembly Member, Caroline PidgeonHere’s my latest column for the Muswell Hill Flyer and Highgate Handbook:

Finally I managed to get Transport for London (TfL), Haringey Primary Care Trust (part of the NHS) and me together in the same place to bang heads together about the need for better bus links to the new Community Health Centre on the old Hornsey Central Hospital site.

We have this wonderful new facility but, despite the transport issues being raised as a key issue at every public and private meeting (literally for years) by many people, nothing has been properly planned, delivered – or even promised for the future.

And of course now the new Health Centre is here – and operational – but not a new bus in sight. Loads of people joined in my campaign for a new bus to enable them to access the new centre when referred there from wherever they live in Highgate, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Fortis Green or Alexandra wards by their own GP.

Imagine my shock when TfL said they had no idea that there were services were already being provided (with lots more to come) which would bring people from all over the west of Hornsey & Wood Green to the new facility. TfL seemed to be under the illusion that the only thing happening was that two GP practices had moved in and only they would need transport.

To be honest – I couldn’t believe it!

Given the promises on transport, the supposed discussions on transport – to be sitting there listening to the two key agencies basically saying that there was such a gap in communication that TfL didn’t know that there was an ongoing and expanding need for access to the site from provision of new services on the site was truly shocking.

From this ‘discovery’ TfL have now agreed to take away the issue and look at it properly. At least they now both seem to understand there is a problem with providing a major new health facility with no extra transport provision.

I have been contacted by many local people on the back of our campaign giving examples of problems they have encountered. One example is a team who have already moved into the new facility and whose clients will commonly have reduced mobility – albeit still very capable of getting on a bus if it can deliver them near to the health centre – are concerned about how their patients will get to them.

Another example is that of one local health worker who has contact with people with very differing needs in the borough who wrote to me to say that a number of people she is in contact with through her work have mentioned their concerns about the lack of usable transport links to the new site.

I don’t know what on earth has been going on – but you can bet my language to both the Chair of Haringey PCT and Peter Hendy (Commissioner of Transport in London) will be pretty strong as I bring this smartly to their attention.

Clearly this is a mess – and I just hope that both Haringey PCT and TfL sort it out now they have acknowledged that they haven’t even been looking at the right problem.

TfL, Haringey PCT and me

Posted on by

Lynne Featherstone, Cllr Martin Newton and London Assembly Member, Caroline PidgeonFinally I managed to get Transport for London (TfL), Haringey PCT and me together in the same place to discuss the need for local people to be able to access services at the new Community Health Centre at Hornsey Hospital.

We have this wonderful new facility – which we all hope is going to be filled with services that local people will access – making life much easier for all. Fly in the ointment is that despite this being raised as a key issue at every public meeting (and all the private ones I have had with TfL or the PCT) nothing has been planned or delivered – or even promised for the future.

And of course – now the new Health Centre is here – and operational. But not a new bus in sight. Loads of people joined in my campaign for a new bus – or more accurately bus links that would enable them to access the new centre – when referred there from wherever they live in Highgate, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Fortis Green and Alexandra.

When the original hospital closed – they took away the W2 – but as it stood as of Friday – there were no plans for any new services at all. For the years of planning and campaigning that everyone has been involved in – it was always going to be needed – so imagine my shock – when at this meeting, which I had convened, TfL said they had no idea that there were services being (and much more to be) provided that would bring people from all over the West of Hornsey & Wood Green to the new Centre when they were referred on by their GP etc. TfL seemed to have thought that all that was happening was that the two GP practises had moved in and only they would need transport.

To be honest – I couldn’t believe it!

Given the promises on transport, the supposed discussions on transport – to be sitting there listening to the two key agencies basically saying that there was such a gap in communication that TfL didn’t know that there was an ongoing and expanding need for access to the site from provision of new services on the site was truly shocking?

I don’t know what the hell has been going on – but I will be writing to the Chair of Haringey PCT, Haringey Council and Peter Hendy (Commissioner of Transport in London) to bring this smartly to their attention.

Coming out of this ‘discovery’ the agreement was that TfL would now, in its new informed position, take away the issue and look at it. Haringey PCT would provide them with the report from the early transport study they commissioned (unbelievable that they hadn’t provided it already), their green travel plan (can’t imagine what that is if it doesn’t beg the question of public transport access). The PCT would provide some mapping – showing where GP surgeries are and where patients live – and therefore the gaps in public transport access to link into a route that serves the site.

At least they now both seem to understand there is a problem with providing a major new health facility with no transport provision. TfL kept saying it was well served by buses already – but then given they seem to have only been looking at the W7 trundling regularly in both directions between Crouch End, Park Road (where the health centre is) and Muswell Hill – they clearly haven’t even thought about other links at all.

I had been contacted by many local people on the back of our campaign to improve bus links to Hornsey. I can give you a couple of the examples from groups who have also backed this campaign which illustrate the point pretty clearly  I think. One local organisation who have moved into the new facility already and whose clients will commonly have reduced mobility – albeit still very capable of getting on a bus if it can deliver them near to the health centre. They are concerned about how their patients will get to them. Also another professional who has contact with people with very differing needs in the borough writes to me that a number of people she is in contact with through her work have mentioned their concerns about the lack of usable transport links to the new site. They were told by the Chair at the Mobility Forum that this wasn’t a pressing problem as there were only two GP practises present on the site.

Clearly – this is a mess – and I just hope that both Haringey PCT and TfL sort it out now they have acknowledged that they haven’t even been looking at the right problem

On a better note – Haringey PCT thought that any transport provision to get to services, for example, that had previously been provided by the Whittington that might in future be provided by the Health Centre, if NHS transport had been used to transport people to their hospital appointment – that same provision should hopefully be switched to the new facility. They will pursue that.

But then, to add insult to injury – and despite the consultation on moving the critical bus stop on Muswell Hill only just having finished – TfL now say that they can’t see where to accommodate the move onto the flat of the Broadway or the roundabout. They say it’s up to Haringey Council to decide if they want to do something up at the roundabout. It’s so easy (and much cheaper) for TfL to say ‘not me gov’ – over to the Council or over to the PCT. And of course – in turn I have no doubt that the PCT and Haringey Council will say that it is TfL. So round and round that goes – with no one taking responsibility for ensuring that people can access the one bus that does go to the hospital direct from Muswell Hill – but which because it is sited on a steep, steep hill – is a hazard for those who are mobility impaired, mothers with buggies, wheelchair users and the older resident. To be continued…….