Vital medical equipment is being shipped abroad despite NHS shortages!

Medical Equipment Being Exported Abroad Despite NHS Shortages

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I'm beginning to wonder if that Bunteresque Johnson, and his sidekick, Dom Cummings, aren't exploiting this national emergency to kill off the elderly and the baby-boomer generation in order to cut the social security/pension bill. It may be a kind of “Shock Therapy”, disaster capitalism, approach to cutting public expenditure.


Dominic Cummings is on record as saying  it's "too bad" if the elderly die of the virus, – he later denied saying this - and how else can you explain, the cack-handed way the Government have gone about dealing with this crises?


Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, told us on 23^rd January, that Professor Christopher John MacRae Whitty, the Chief Public Health Officer for England, had revised the risk of the UK population getting the coronavirus from "low to very low" and said that the country was well prepared and well equipped to deal with it.


Since then, tens of thousands of people have died of the virus (a thousand in one day), and NHS staff are complaining of a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), and their difficulty in getting tested. There is also a shortage of respiratory equipment.


A week ago, Bill Gardner, of the DailyTelegraph, wrote that millions of pieces of PPE were being shipped from Britain to Europe despite the NHS shortages. He wrote:


“Last week five million surgical masks and more than a million respirators were packed onto EU-registered Lorries by one UK wholesaler …and shipped from British warehouses to Germany, Spain, and Italy, despite severe shortages in the UK.”


According to Gardner, UK firms had told him that they had “no choice” but to keep selling lifesaving gear abroad because their efforts of help had been repeatedly ignored by the British government.


Milton Pena, who was an orthopaedic surgeon at Tameside Hospital, for 17-years, told me recently that the failure to do widespread testing and not to count coronavirus deaths in the community was 'premeditated', i.e. deliberate government policy. According to MailOnline, No 10 abandoned widespread testing more than a month ago, so the true scale of Britain's outbreak is a mystery. And why is this country still exporting PPE to other countries, when NHS staff, are complaining of a shortage of it, which is putting their lives at risk?


What's also curious is why 15,000 air passengers a day, are still flying into British airports even from high-risk countries, and aren't being screened or quarantined or even observing rules on social-distancing. They just walk onto the streets of Britain, after being given a leaflet, advising them to self-isolate for two weeks, if they feel I'll after landing.


Public Health England have said that screening  is ineffective and the Foreign Office, maintains that there is no evidence that closing borders or travel bans, would have any effect on the spread of infection. Yet, many other countries have done the very opposite. Professor Gabriel Scally, of the Royal Society of Medicine, told the Financial Times:

"The UK is an outlier. It is very hard to understand why it (the British government), persists in having the open border policy. It is most peculiar."


And while this is going on, we're being told to stay at home, keep three metres apart, and risk fines and prosecution, if we infringe lock-down restrictions, much of which is of dubious legality. You couldn't make it up; it's like something out of a comic opera.

Austerity Kills! Deaths of elderly was 'Gerineglicide' says former NHS consultant..

A number of studies that have been carried out in recent years have revealed how mortality figures (the death rate), which had been dropping steadily in England since the 1970s, have been reversed since 2011.  The studies have also claimed that the reversal in the downward trend in the death rate, is linked to government austerity policies and cuts in public expenditure.

In February 2016, the Daily Telegraph disclosed that preliminary data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), had shown that in just one year (2015), there was a 5.4% increase in deaths in England - equating to almost 30,000 extra deaths.  This represented the largest increase in deaths in the post-war period. Public Health England maintained that the 30,000 excess deaths were "not exceptional" and they claimed that the increase in deaths, was due to the influenza strain in 2015 that mainly affected older people.

This excuse of cold weather and a flu epidemic for the spike in the mortality rate in January 2015, was rejected by the authors of a report that was published in the journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in February 2017.  The researchers - Professor Martin McKee, Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Lucinda Hiam and Dominic Harrison, tested four possible explanations for the 30,000 excess deaths in 2015.  Data errors, cold weather and the flue epidemic, were all excluded. What they discovered was clear evidence of health system failures.  Almost all targets were missed - ambulance call out times and A&E waiting times. Staff absence rates rose and medical posts remained unfilled.  Significantly, many of the excess deaths were among the elderly population, those aged over 65-years-old. Professor McKee said:

"The impact of cuts resulting from the imposition of austerity on the NHS has been profound. Expenditure has failed to keep pace with demand and the situation has been exacerbated by dramatic reductions in the welfare budget of £16.7 billion and in social care spending." 

Another author of the report, Professor Danny Dorling of Oxford University and an advisor to Public Health England, said:

"I suspect that largest factor here is cuts to social services - to meals on wheels, to visits to the elderly.  We have seen these changes during a period when the health service is in crisis, while social care services have been cut back."

There is growing opinion and evidence that it's the elderly who are bearing the brunt of the cuts to NHS funding and social care.  Thousands of complaints have been made about care for the elderly in England. In 2013-14, some 14,888 complaints about care home residents aged 65 and over, were reported to 74 councils.  In February 2015, Claire Savage on BBC5 Live, reported that in West Sussex, 19 people died after suffering "sub-optimal care" at the Orchid View care home in Copthorne.  The Department of Health, called the abuse and neglect of vulnerable people "deplorable."  The neglect of elderly people often results in care home residents being rushed to hospital as emergency admissions.  In 2014-15, some 22,682 care home residents were rushed to hospital as emergency cases.  This was up from 13,906 in 2010-11, an increase of 63%.

Milton Pena, worked in the N.H.S. for forty years before retiring in October 2014.  He was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon for 24 years and spent 17 years working at Tameside Hospital.  He believes that the most common terminal event that caused the increase in deaths among the elderly population in 2015-2016, was institutional "Neglect!" Indeed, he argues that what was a blip in 2015 - the spike in the mortality rate - has now become a disturbing trend.  He said:  "The question is not why any particular individual died, but why, after many years of declining mortality, the death rate should increase so much." 

In an interview with Northern Voices (NV) he cited Professor Marion McMurdo, who in a letter to the British Medical Journal (B.M.J), stated that the N.H.S must adapt to ensure that it meets the needs of the population. In the letter, she stated: 

"There is a mindset among hospital Directors, Business Managers and some health professionals that frail elderly patients are 'not our core business'.  Few national providers would make such a blatantly ageist inference that its 'core business' was too tricky to manage, and propose to solve the problem be ceasing to attempt to deal with it."

According to Milton Pena, what is taking place is neither Euthanasia or Genocide, but what he calls "Gerineglicide", the killing of thousands of elderly and vulnerable human beings due to lack of resources from government, systemic failures, and institutional neglect.  He told NV:

"Gerineglicide is many things: poverty, misguided policies and directives e.g. the avoidance of hospital admissions, abysmal lack of bed capacity for the admission of patients with acute severe life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia etc.  Similarly, insufficient staff - nurses, midwives, radiographers, doctors or lack of resources to care for people in their homes.  Keeping elderly individuals with multiple ailments alive, does not make business sense to the mandarins that run health care 'planning and execution' in England. Prolonging the lives of the elderly is not profitable."

Back in 2017, when the Royal Society of Medicine published the paper "Why has mortality in England and Wales been increasing?", only one member of Parliament raised a question in the House of Commons:

"The Minister will be aware that mortality rates in England and Wales have increased by 5.4% in 2015, the biggest increase in the death rate for decades. She will also be aware that mortality rates have been rising since 2011. Has she done any analysis of what has been behind those trends?"

Milton Pena also says  that there has been a deafening silence from most of the professional bodies regarding the excess mortality that spiked in 2015.

After the financial crisis  of 2008, annual funding increases for the NHS fell from 4% a year to below inflation, even as a growing and ageing population increased demand for healthcare.  In November 2017, the New Scientist magazine referred to a 'landmark study' by Jonathan Watkins and colleagues of King's College London that found that after controlling for other economic changes, death rates rose after the cuts, especially among the over 65s.  The team also found that 120,000 more people died in England between 2010-2017, following funding cuts to the N.H.S. than would have been expected if trends in death rates before the cuts had been maintained.  The researchers also said that if this effect continues, a further 75,000 excess deaths could occur by 2020.

Banned but not Gagged!

Health campaigner - Paul Broadhurst

A local pensioner and health campaigner from Dukinfield, in Greater Manchester, has received an invitation to a 'community open day' at 'Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust', despite being banned from entering hospital premises since November 2016.

Last September, Paul Broadhurst, received a letter from Weightmans solicitors of Liverpool- who act on behalf of Tameside Hospital - advising him that he was banned from entering any Trust premises unless his attendance was for a medical emergency or a pre-arranged medical appointment.

In October 2016, Mr. Broadhurst, who suffers from a serious heart condition, was escorted off the hospital premises by security staff while accompanying his wife who was attending the hospital for emergency medical treatment. He was told by hospital security staff that he'd been 'ASBO'd' and would have to leave the premises immediately. The CEO, of Tameside Hospital, Karen James, subsequently apologised for the way Mr Broadhurst and his wife had been treated, but the ban was not lifted. The letter form Weightmans solicitors, warned him:

"If you attend for any other purpose then you would be trespassing and action could be taken to remove you from the site and/or legal action could be brought against you."

To justify their actions in excluding Mr Broadhurst, the hospital alleges that he had called for the resignation of Paul Connellan, the Chairman of the hospital Board, and had disrupted meetings and intimidated staff. While Mr Broadhurst acknowledges that he's called on Connellan to resign, he says that many of the allegations made against him by the hospital are malicious, defamatory and unsubstantiated.  He says that in spite of seeking specific details about the nature of any complaints that have been made against him, neither the hospital or their solicitors, have been able to provide him with any "hard evidence." He also points out that his membership of the hospital Trust, has never been rescinded, although he cannot attend hospital meetings because of the ban.

It has often been cited in official reports on Tameside Hospital that hospital staff frequently feel bullied and harassed, not by Mr Broadhurst, but by Tameside Hospital management. Even though the hospital as a policy of "if in doubt speak out", many hospital staff have indicated in these reports that they feel at risk if they speak out about their concerns. Mr Broadhurst, alleges that one public governor from Droylsden, was forced to resign in February 2016, after raising concerns about "NHS Improvements." In his own particular case, he feels that the ban imposed by Tameside Hospital, is a crude attempt to silence him and to stop him asking awkward and critical questions and attending hospital meetings.

Tameside Hospital is massively in debt and this is a major reason why it was recently announced that Shire Hill Hospital in Glossop, is to close. The hospital are also planning to cut 246 beds at Tameside Hospital by 2020. Although the official spiel from the hospital is couched in terms of 'improving services' and 'reconfiguration', the financial considerations are inescapable. In 2010, the official regulator 'Monitor', declared the hospital to be "Clinically and financially unsustainable." In 2015/16 compensation claims hit £9m and we understand that five hospital board members, have recently "jumped ship."

Last year, the Trust balance sheet showed a deficit of £14 million plus a loan from the NHS for hospital improvements (including the new Darnton Unit at the Hospital) of £55 million. By  the end of the current financial year the estimated deficit will be £24 million and the loan will have risen to £78 million. At the declared interest rate of 3.6%, the repayments on the loan alone, will be at least £2.8 million per year.

At the Annual General Meeting of the Tameside and Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group (TGCCG), held at Dukinfield Town Hall on 26 July,  Mr Broadhurst - who was the only member of the public to attend the meeting - asked if the debt of the Trust would affect the ability of the TGCCG when funding or setting up with other service providers for the needs of the community. Kathy Rose, the Chief Financial Officer for TGCCG replied that this would have no bearing on money that the TGCCG allocates, as the hospital deal was directly with NHS Improvements. We understand that Paul Connellan, the Chairman of the Board at Tameside Hospital, who was at the meeting, declined to comment.

While Paul Broadhurst may have been banned from attending meetings at Tameside Hospital, it doesn't appear that the hospital have managed to gag him. He can now be found most weeks at the hospital car park, with placard and T-shirt proudly proclaiming, "THE TRUST THAT HIDES THE TRUTH!"

We understand that after receiving the invitation to attend the Tameside Hospital AGM and the "Open Day", Mr Broadhurst sent an email to the hospital on 23rd August, asking if his ban had been lifted. At the time of writing, we gather that the hospital have yet to respond.

Tameside health campaigner condemns "wall of silence" surrounding hospital bed cuts!

We are publishing below an email that was sent by Rod McCord of the 'Tameside Hospital Action Group' (THAG), to Angela Rayner, MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, on 5 December 2016. In his email Mr. McCord refers to the proposed reduction of 246 beds which Tameside Hospital are intending to cut by 2020 - a 55% cut in current bed capacity, that will leave a remaining 203 hospital beds. He points out that there has been little public involvement and consultation in these proposed cut-backs and a "virtual wall of silence surrounding the bed cuts".

In the email, Ms. Rayner, is asked for her comments on the proposed bed cuts and if she could "ascertain from the Trust its precise intentions in respect of the retention of a full, 24-hour A&E unit" and the proposed demolition of the Charlesworth Building, which houses the maternity suites. We understand - at the time of writing - that Ms. Rayner has not replied to Mr. McCord about the matters raised in his email.

Despite the seriousness consequences that bed cuts could have for the public in Tameside and Glossop, the silence from the official authorities about this issue has been deafening. It is being claimed that the bed cuts can be compensated for by creation of five multidisciplinary care teams, working within the community. 

Although the UK average is 300 beds per 100,000 population, Tameside Hospital, would be left with 80 beds per 100,000 population. In the Irish Republic it is about 500; in Belgium its is over 650; in France it is over 700; in Germany it is over 800 and even in Romania, there is an average of 600 beds per 100,000 population.

Last November, Sir Richard Leese, the Labour leader of  Manchester City Council, told an audience representing voluntary organisations across Greater Manchester that he wanted to see ward and hospital closures across Great Manchester. He believes that many people who are currently in hospital need not be there and that their needs could be better met in other ways. 

Milton Pena, a retired consultant orthopaedic surgeon, who worked at Tameside Hospital for seventeen-years, told a public meeting held in Stalybridge last September that such a massive reduction in bed capacity would lead t0 a drastic deterioration in quality of care of patients in Tameside and Glossop and that safety, effectiveness, and patient experience, would be significantly effected.

To: "angela.rayner.mp@parliament.uk"  
Sent: Monday, 5 December 2016, 19:01
Subject: Tameside Hospital

Angela Rayner, MP

Ashton-u-Lyne

Dear Ms Rayner,

On behalf of Tameside Hospital Action Group (THAG), I am writing to you as the MP in whose constituency Tameside hospital is situated.

You will be aware that the hospital is currently in the process of becoming an Integrated Care Organisation, plans for which were outlined in a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers released in July 2015. (attached)

THAG welcomes the integration of health and social care and, in principle, supports these developments.  However, we are concerned that the plans include an unconscionable reduction in the number of acute beds at the hospital, slashing their number from 449 to a mere 203, a loss of 246 beds, that is, 55% of current capacity. (See p.14 of attached PwC report)

Although future emphasis will be upon preventative healthcare and care in the community – and, hopefully therefore, fewer hospital admissions – there is a paucity of evidence to support such a severe diminution of bed capacity. 

In the circumstances, THAG is inclined towards the view that this is a cost-driven, rather than evidence-based measure and represents a wildly over-optimistic forecast of the number of beds that can be dispensed with whilst continuing to meet the needs of the local population under the new model of care.  We believe that the hospital should not proceed with bed cuts until the ICO is up-and-running and its efficacy has been fully reviewed with the need for fewer beds convincingly demonstrated.

Additionally, the consequences of such a downgrading of the hospital for it’s A&E department are extremely ominous.  THAG was unable to elicit assurances from the Trust’s chief executive, Karen James, at its recent AGM that a full A&E unit would continue to operate;  she was only prepared to say that an emergency service would continue to be provided, raising fears that the existing unit would be reduced to no more than 9 – 5 service or an urgent care centre.

Presently, planned implementation of the ICO is quite advanced.  However, public involvement and consultation has been minimal, with a virtual wall of silence surrounding bed cuts and the future of A&E.

We would be grateful, therefore, if you could ascertain from the Trust its precise intentions in respect of the retention of a full, 24-hour A&E unit and we would appreciate your comments on the proposed axeing of 246 beds at the hospital, which includes the demolition of the existing Charlesworth Building.

We very much look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Yours sincerely,

Rod McCord (Tameside Hospital Action Group)

Are N.H.S. services in Greater Manchester safe with Andy Burnham?

'Doe-eyed' - Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham, who is standing as a candidate in the Greater Manchester mayoral elections, was recently described by one newspaper columnist, as ‘doe-eyed’ and a cross between ‘Paul McCartney’ and a ‘Thunderbird puppet’. Last week, Andy, the Member of Parliament for Leigh, was on the stump in Ashton-under-Lyne, where he was billed to be speaking at a public meeting on ‘Health and Well-being, at Clarendon Sixth Form College.

While the event was free to attend, and was advertised on ‘eventbrite.com’, it was not widely advertised or easy to register and many of the people who were attending the event, told me that they were Labour Party members who had received invitations to attend the meeting. Despite assurances from a Labour functionary, wearing a red tie, that it was indeed a public meeting, a Tameside councillor, told me that it was by invitation only.  

By all accounts, the event turned out to be less a “Policy Development Conference on Health and Well-being” and more an Andy Burnham roadshow. A health professional, who managed to attend the meeting, who is also a Labour Party member, told NV that the event was a ‘missed opportunity’ and a ‘waste of time’. Seemingly, proposals to integrate health and social care in Tameside and across Greater Manchester, “the first properly integrated National Health and Care Service”, which Burnham supports, were presented as a shining light within Greater Manchester.

While the public are told that Andy Burnham is keen to involve the public in developing policies that “will make a real and meaningful difference to people’s lives”, this turned out to be even more bullshit. According to our health professional, the people in charge of the meeting were not interested in talking about the massive bed cuts at Tameside Hospital, low staffing levels, or how tax-payers’ money is being wasted. Neither had they much to say about the fate of the N.H.S. Instead, all the speakers focused on how Andy Burnham’s career as a Labour politician, had been full of dedication to the well-being of the great British public.

Although I think that integrating health and social care could be an excellent idea, the thought of out-of-their-depth, ten-bob councillors, in Greater Manchester, having greater control over N.H.S spending and health care in the region, is something that fills me with abject horror. In 2013, the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), said that Labour dominated councils like Manchester, Salford and Tameside, were at risk of becoming the equivalent of ‘one party states’ like North Korea, China or Cuba.

Last month, Sir Richard Leese, the Labour leader of Manchester City Council- a council where almost all the council seats are filled by Labour - speaking about DevoManc, told an audience at the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisations (G.M.C.V.O) A.G.M, that he wanted to see ward and hospital closures across Greater Manchester, including Tameside. He believes that many people who are currently in hospital, need not be there and that their needs could be better met in other ways. 

However, as part of the ‘Devolution’ agreement, the government have made it a condition that all the ten council’s in Greater Manchester, develop ‘new care models’ between now and 2020, to receive the £450 million, ‘Transformation’ fund monies agreed in the devolution agreement. Mr Leese also believes that it is the role of voluntary organisations, to “fill in the holes”, left by public service cuts.

Already, Tameside Hospital have confirmed that they are planning to close 246 beds at the hospital by 2020 and claim that this can be compensated for by the creation of five local multidisciplinary care teams. Moreover, care services are steadily being privatised - CareUK have recently been given a five-year contract for musculoskeletal services in Tameside. Nationally, some 200 N.H.S care services have also been handed over to the billionaire tax exile, Richard Branson.

Milton Peña, a retired consultant orthopaedic surgeon, who worked at Tameside Hospital for seventeen-years, told a public meeting held in Stalybridge in September:

“Such a massive reduction in bed capacity will lead to a drastic deterioration in quality of care of patients in Tameside and Glossop. Safety, effectiveness and patient experience, will be significantly affected.”

Some people are rightly suspicious about the notion of “integrated care” believing it to be a cover for cuts, deprofessionalization and the downgrading of N.H.S services. They question how private companies can provide a high standard of health and social care while making profits and point out that this is often done, at the expense of cutting staff and working conditions.

Although, Andy Burnham, failed to explain how ‘integration’ will improve health and social care, some sceptic’s in the ‘Tameside Keep our N.H.S Public’ group, believe that Labour in Manchester, have:

“swallowed hook, line and sinker current government ideology that believes publicly funded and provided health and social care services should be severely reduced, leaving a ‘safety net’ for the deserving poor, for whom no alternative is possible.”

As they point out, this would mean most of us paying for services or taking out private health insurance as is the case in America, where failure to pay medical bills, is the main cause of middle-class bankruptcy in the United States.

As a candidate for Mayor, Andy Burnham, should tell the electorate whether he agrees or disagrees with Sir Richard Leese in wanting ward and hospital closures across Greater Manchester and how “integration”, will improve health and social care.

Banned and Gagged by Tameside Hospital!

Health Campaigner - Paul Broadhurst

A local health campaigner who is also member of the Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust, has been told by solicitors acting on behalf of Tameside Hospital that he has been banned from the premises of Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust. 

In a solicitor’s letter that he received on 9 September, from Weightmans of Liverpool, Paul Broadhurst, from Dukinfield, was told that the hospital was intending to exclude him from the Trust’s premises and that he could now only attend the hospital, when seeking emergency or planned medical treatment. Although Mr Broadhurst, is a member of the hospital trust, the letter warned him:

“If you attend for any other purpose then you would be trespassing and action could be taken to remove you from the site and/or legal action could be brought against you.”

Tameside Hospital claim that they have banned Broadhurst from their premises, because he has campaigned to “harass and discredit the Trust’s employees and officers.” They also allege that he has emailed Trust Governors and Non-Executive Directors criticising the Chair and stating that he should resign. Moreover, that on occasions, he has been seen at the hospital with a placard around his neck and engages in conversations, with people at the hospital. They also claim that he has no legitimate reason to conduct his campaign and recently infiltrated and disrupted a staff focus group meeting, with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The hospital also insists that Mr Broadhurst has failed to use the ‘proper channels’, but don’t explain what these are. 

Without doubt, Paul Broadhurst, is an irritant and a thorn in the side of the management at Tameside Hospital. But we do live in a free country and not Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, as Tameside Hospital, and their solicitors seem to think. What some people may see as quite unreasonable behaviour, is seen by others, as perfectly legitimate activity that is in the public interest. Many people applaud Paul Broadhurst, for his efforts to improve patient care at Tameside Hospital.  

When the current CEO, Karen James, took over as interim CEO in the summer of 2013, following the resignation of the then CEO, Christine Green, when the hospital was put into ‘special measures’ following the Keogh review, she promised a new era of openness and transparency. Today, walking around Tameside Hospital, you will see notices displayed, “if in doubt speak out!”  The reason for this, is because the hospital has form and a history, for harassing and bullying staff who speak out. You might say that a lack of candour was a major reason why the hospital was put into special measures.  Hospital staff knew that to raise concerns, led to reprisals being taken against them by hospital management. In its Annual Report 2014/15 (Our staff), some 21% of staff working at Tameside Hospital claimed to have experienced harassment, bullying or abuse, in the last twelve months.  Milton Peña, who worked at Tameside Hospital for seventeen years, as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, has described in detail in his recently published memoirs, the threats and intimidation that was meted out to him by Tameside Hospital management in their quest to stop him speaking out about the lack of patient safety at the hospital.  

For Paul Broadhurst, this ban by Tameside Hospital management, is just history repeating itself and a pathetic attempt to stop him speaking out. Five years ago (2011), he was banned from the hospital premises for similar reasons when he received a solicitors letter from Hempson’s in Manchester.  When he went to the hospital in 2011, for medical help with a serious heart condition, he was treated like the American gangster, John Dillinger (public enemy number one), and escorted around the hospital by burly security staff as he attended his hospital appointments. He regards many of the allegations made by the hospital as malicious, fabricated and potentially defamatory.  While he doesn’t deny calling on the Chair of Tameside Hospital, Paul Connellan, to resign, he says that his “days of action” have always taken place off hospital property and he denies, disrupting any meetings of the Board or Governors, which are held at the hospital and which the public can attend as observers only, and are not allowed to speak. The allegation that he infiltrated and disrupted a meeting with hospital staff and the CQC on 10 August, he regards as ludicrously absurd, pointing out that he’d arranged to meet the manager of the CQC at the hospital, and when asked to wait outside the meeting, had complied immediately.

Although the hospital has been made aware of these facts, they have refused to lift the ban on Paul Broadhurst. Despite asking the solicitor for hard evidence to substantiate the allegations made against him by the hospital, this as not been forthcoming. When he sought to attend the hospital AGM on 27 September 2016, as a member of the public, Mr Broadhurst was denied access by security staff. Just over a week later, on 4 October, when he attended the hospital to accompany his seriously ill wife, Mary, he was thrown off the premises by security staff who falsely claimed that they had an ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Order’ (ASBO) against him. Karen James later apologised for the way he had been treated but refused to lift the ban. Despite the appalling and inhuman behaviour that Mr Broadhurst was subjected to, Ms James, was recently short-listed for the prestigious ‘Chief-Executive-of-the-Year’ health service journal award.

As a member of the Tameside hospital trust, Mr Broadhurst believes the hospital have no legal right to ban him from the premises. He believes that the hospital is harassing him and that their allegations are malicious, false and defamatory.  He is also adamant that the hospital has breached his human rights in denying him access to public meetings. The hospital ban has received quite a lot of media publicity with Tameside Hospital management, being held up to ridicule for their actions in trying to silence him, which seems to have had the opposite effect.  A group to support Mr Broadhurst has been set up and is demanding that the hospital apologises to Mr Broadhurst and lifts the ban.  Perhaps a more appropriate notice for display throughout the hospital run by Karen James, would be: “If in doubt, Watch out!”

Tameside Hospital to cut 246 beds. Surgeon condemns the plan!

Milton Pena - NHS Whistle-blower

A former consultant surgeon who retired from Tameside Hospital in October 2014, after working for forty-years in the NHS and specializing in orthopaedic surgery, has slammed Tameside Hospital for its plan to close 246 beds by 2020, which he says will put patients at serious risk.

At a public meeting held in Stalybridge last week, Milton Pena, who worked for seventeen-years at Tameside Hospital as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, told the meeting that such a massive reduction in bed capacity would lead to a drastic deterioration in the quality of care offered to patients at Tameside Hospital. “Safety, effectiveness, and patient experience, will be significantly affected”, he declared.

Mr Pena told the meeting that with a population in Tameside & Glossop of 250,000, the proposed cut in bed capacity from 449 to 203 beds in acute care, would mean that there would only be 80 beds per 100,000 people. He added: “When I arrived at Tameside Hospital in 1997, it had more than 600 beds for in-patients.”

In a letter that he wrote to the ‘Care Quality Commission’ (CQC), in August, Mr Pena said that the idea that losing 246 beds at the hospital could be compensated for by the creation of five multi-disciplinary care teams, is misguided and not based on evidence. He also says in the letter that there were 531 incident reports by nurses regarding lack of nursing staff at the hospital in the year from May 2015 to 2016 and yet,

“No one at the Board meeting (which he attended) questioned the Financial Director on how the Trust efficiency program savings can be delivered in full without affecting quality of care, clinical effectiveness, patient experience and safety.”

Speaking of the Board at Tameside Hospital, Mr Pena told the CQC:

“I attended two Board meetings as a member of the public, the latest on Thursday 28 July. With few exceptions, I did not observe challenging questions from the Chair, executive and non-executive directors, when reports were presented to the Board. The approval of the Board of the ‘Contingency Planning Team Report’ by PwC, without any reservations, regarding the plan to close 246 beds by 2020, shows the Board has not fully considered the impact of decisions being taken…There was not a single medically qualified director at the Board meeting on 28 July."

In September 2013, Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust, was declared financially unsustainable by ‘Monitor’ the regulator, three-months after the resignation of former CEO, Christine Green, who left following the review by Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England Medical Director. Recently the hospital has come under fire for poor standards of cleanliness and for its high mortality ratio.

Mr Pena is calling on people to write to their MPs requesting that the planned bed cuts be rejected and he says that the integration of care, does not have to incorporate such massive bed cuts. Since retiring in 2014, he has published his memoirs entitled, ‘The Flight of the Black Necked Swans’, which details his effort to improve standards of patient care at Tameside Hospital.

Confessions of an NHS whistle-blower!



ALTHOUGH this book by Milton Peña Vásquez is not without its faults, mainly in the editing, it ought to be compulsory reading for any young person intent on embarking upon a career in the medical profession. Not only does it give a revealing and honest account of the internal workings of Tameside hospital, but it also exposes the incompetence of NHS managers and their attempts to cover up their failings by threats and intimidation.
The findings of the Keogh review team which were published in a report in July 2013, led to the resignation of Christine Green, the Chief Executive of Tameside Hospital and Tariq Mahmood, the hospital Medical Director. Among its findings, the report stated that Tameside Hospital had the 7th highest rate of infection for MRSA of 141 Trusts nationally over the three years from 2010-2012 and had the second highest infection rate in the country for Clostridium difficile, over the same period. It also found that:

'The Trust’s clinical negligence payments have significantly exceeded contributions to the ‘risk sharing scheme’ over the last three-years, by a total of £21m over this period.' 

Yet, in spite of its appalling record for mortality, cleanliness and safety, Tameside Hospital managed to obtain foundation trust status in February 2008 (“supposedly the benchmark of excellence”) when death rates were 19% above the average and safety was the “sixth-worst in England” (Daily Mail 30/11/2009). Mrs Green also managed to secure a 17% pay rise which took her salary from £120,000 to £140,000 a year.

READ MORE:

http://tamesideinfocus.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/confessions-of-nhs-whistle-blower_10.html

Page-Views on the NV BLOG?

SINCE we last published a review of the page-views on the Northern Voices' BLOG in December 2014, we have had almost a four-fold increase in the number of viewings.  Last month, the total page-views were virtually double our best ever total for any other month. 
It is clear that the posts from Chris Draper on the goings on at Freedom Press is having some impact on the figures.  Posting by Chris entitled PENSIONER ATTACKED at ANARCHIST HQ! and   A Year in the Death of FREEDOM  are scoring quite well.   Other posts doing well are: 

The Hegemony of Horrible Hugs: about Simon Danczuk the Rochdale MP and his relations with
the Tory Party and the review by Blanco Posnet entitled Confessions of an NHS whistle-blower! about the book 'The Black Necked Swans' by Milton Peña Vásquez the Chilean surgeon at Tameside Hospital, are also scoring good hits.

  

Tameside Hospital placed into 'special measures' by Keogh. CEO resigns!

TAMESIDE Hospital has been placed into special measures following a review by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, Medical Director of the National Health Service in England. Sir Bruce Keogh and his team, were instructed by the government to investigate 14 hospital trusts with high death rates - Tameside Hospital being one of them, following publication of the Francis Report, into Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

An interim Chief Executive and an interim Medical Director, have been brought in by the regulator 'Monitor', to replace £150,000 per year, Chief Executive, Christine Green and the £160,000 per year Medical Director, Dr Tariq Mahmood, who resigned before publication of the report. MPs, doctors and NHS regulators, said they had lost faith in Green's ability to overhaul the hospital's poor record of care, which had "caused anxieties at the highest level of the health service." The Guardian newspaper disclosed that the GP-led Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), was so concerned by lapses in care and the hospital's failure to act on multiple previous warnings that it believed Green and Mahmood had to go. Mahmood said that he was resigning for 'family reasons' but would be staying at the hospital working as an obstetrician.

The 55 page report on Tameside Hospital, notes that Tameside falls within the most deprived quartile of counties in England. That teenage pregnancy and alcohol-related hospital stays for under-18-year-olds are particularly common and violent crime and long-term unemployment, relatively more common than in England as a whole. Children's and young people's and adults health is significantly lower than the national average. Tameside life expectancy for both men and women is significantly lower than the national average.Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), in particular, asbestos-related lung disease is common in Tameside. The report also says:-

The number of actual deaths at the hospital is above the expected range. A score of 100 indicates that the observed number of deaths matched the expected number. The hospital had an overall 'Summary Hospital-level Mortality Indicator (SHMI) of 116 between Dec 2011 to Nov 2012. Elective admissions (those patients who arrange to go into hospital) was also above the expected range for SHMI, with a value of 166. According to figures published by Professor Sir Brian Jarman, on excess deaths at failing hospital trusts, there were 833 excess deaths at Tameside Hospital between 2006-2012, than would have been expected.

The report says there is an acceptance of sub optimal standards of care across the organisation.

The hospital had the seventh highest rate of MRSA superbug infections out of 141 national trusts from 2010-12. It had the second highest infection rate in the country over the same period for Clostridium difficile.

Response to complaints is brief, slow and lacking in compassion and accountability.

The staff sickness rate is almost twice the average and the three-month vacancy rate over 50% higher the national average. More money is spent on agency staff (9.4% of total staff costs) than the regional median average of (3.5%). Nursing levels at the hospital are 'dangerously low' - 1.31 nurses per bed as compared with a national average of 1.96.

Junior doctors and patients are not being adequately supervised by consultants, particularly at night. The Board is not effectively leading the the Trust in delivering quality care and governance. Hospital governors appear disengaged, have limited information about the Trust's quality and safety priorities and do not feel they can hold the non-executive directors to account.

The report says that hospital staff are apprehensive about speaking out or asking questions in monthly briefing sessions. According to one hospital consultant, who is not quoted in the report, "Many nurses simply do not report understaffed shifts for many reasons; tiredness, fear of reprisals or simply because they believe it will not change anything." Only "A few brave nurses continue to file incident forms, reporting that the wards are unsafe as a result of understaffing. The Trust categorises these incidents as of low priority."

According to the  report, Board members did not feel they could effectively challenge at Board meetings because the chief executive's response was unpredictable. The Chief executive's approach is described as 'overly operational' and the report adds, "the Chairman had not fully considered the impact of this leadership style on the executive team's ability to fulfil their functions." Others have described her leadership style as 'bullying', 'bossy and domineering'. The Chairman (Paul Connellan) was not able to confirm that he was fully assured of the quality of services provided in the hospital. At interview, he described being 60% assured and 40% reasssured. The senior independent director, could not decribe what was on the Chairman's 'worry list'.

There is poor infection control at the hospital. In one instance, a patient admitted with Clostridium difficile, was put on a six-bedded bay in the Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) which was in breach of Trust policy and which put, the five remaining patients at risk. According to the report there is insufficient clinical cover, particularly out of hours, which is leading to a lack of timely investigations and poor management of deteriorating patients in some areas. At the unannounced visit (2nd/3rd June), the most senior surgical doctor in the hospital was a Foundation Year 2 doctor. The doctor said that her registrar was on call at home and described being supervised during the day but not at night.

Although hospital management told the panel that they did not fully understand what the factors were behind the high death rate at the hospital nor were they clear, as to what were the best actions needed to address it, the report says that there is a commonly held belief amongst hospital management that the 'Shipman effect' - a reluctance to allow ill patients to stay in the community, and external factors - poor community care, social deprivation and underlying health problems, are the main reasons for excess mortality. The report notes that emphasis on the 'Shipman effect' and other external factors, could reduce focus on improvements to reduce excess mortality.

The report also says that mortality (deaths) are monitored by a paediatrician who looks at a random choice of of 8-10 patient deaths per week. But a report by Milton Pena, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, at Tameside Hospital, which was sent to Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health in 2010, had this to say about the process:

"The Review of contemporary deaths in adults has been carried out by a consultant paediatrician. This is worrying because he is outside his area of expertise."

During the unannounced visit in June, it was noted that 8 out of 14 sets of notes viewed, did not have the basic patients details recording appropriate monitoring of fluid input and output, even in a patient who had undergone a transfusion. On ward 45, 'Do Not Resuscitate' (DNAR) forms did not contain the consultants name or sign-off as required by Trust policy. One of the forms examined was signed-off by a Foundation Year 2 doctor. None of them had a consultant signature. It was also noted that the Women's Health Unit, was being managed by an agency nurse contrary to Trust policy.

The panel concluded that they were not convinced that the Board had the capability to fully address the cultural change required in the Trust. They also noted that although the hospital had launched an 'Everyone Matters' initiative, there was no clear evidence that the board was listening to patients and familiies to improve the quality of patient experience. (Some patients and relatives who did complain to the hospital and joined action groups such as the Tameside Hospital Action Group (THAG), were branded by the hospital management as individuals with psychological problems).Three years ago (June 2010), the consultants Korn/Ferry/Whitehead Mann, had this to say about the Board: "The Board meetings are not discussing urgent clinical matters in depth and not conducting rigorous debate on key issues...The Chairman and CEO lack the leadership qualities required."

It's almost two-years ago that Paul Connellan was appointed Chairman of the Board at Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust. He was described by the chief executive Christine Green as "a perfect fit" and he vowed that he would improve the culture and image of the hospital. He also claimed that he had the right skills and experience (30 years experience in the travel industry) to get to the root of problems, such as the high death rates. But far from improving the culture and image of the hospital, the report has found a lack of leadership and capability at Board level and serious failings in the hospital's patient care. The hospital have been told to take urgent action and to ensure that no patients are at immediate risk of unsafe care.

This collective failure of governance and responsibilty at Tameside Hospital and the deficiencies in patient care, have led to calls for a public inquiry. Amongst those who are demanding a public inquiry, are health campaigner, Liz Degnen, from Hadfield. In 2009, her 79-year-old mother, Betty Dunn, died from the superbug C Difficile while she was a patient at Tameside Hospital. Liz collected 8,000 signatures on a petition calling for hospital bosses to resign. In a recent interview in the Manchester Evening News, she said that she was "thrilled to bits" to hear of Christine Green's resignation. "I think she should hang her head in shame. She should not receive a payout because there should be no reward for failure in the NHS." Referring to the Keogh report, she told the newspaper: "I really welcome the findings of the report. We've waited far too long to reach this day. It has vindicated everything we campaigned for. We need to move forward now. I hope we can now get a public inquiry with total transparency, but we've got to look to the future and be optimistic."

Tameside Hospital have said that all recommendations in the Keogh report will be implemented in full by the end of February 2014. They have also launched 'Tameside Listens', which will ask staff, local people, stakeholders, for their views and ideas about how improvements can be made at the hospital to deliver high quality care for patientsand families."