For the first time since the local NHS and Council bureaucracies started drawing up the NW London Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP) in January of this year, they are going to allow members of the great unwashed British public to discuss it in a face to face meeting on 26 September. Cllr Krupesh Hirani, Chair of Brent’s Health & Wellbeing Board, responding to a BPV…
Following our polite request to Brent CCG to reconsider its decision to terminate the Brent Sickle Cell Advice and Support Service (see post of 20 July below), the Governing Body agreed on 7 September to continue funding until a new alternative proposal comes back to them and then to give 3 months notice if there was a decision to end the existing Service. This at…
On Friday 26th August the national media and 38 degrees woke up to the existence of STPs, which we have been warning about for months – see other posts on this page. They only partly got it, focussing as ever on the risk of hospital closures. This is the letter we sent to The Guardian. Though they did not publish it there was one from…
In the real world “optimisation” means making things better. In “NHS speak” you can’t be too sure. Brent CCG has contracted Bexley Health Ltd (BHL) to provide a Brent ‘Referral Optimisation Service’ (BROS). This will start on 1 September 2016. Brent Patient Voice has followed this development for several months. We think it could have some advantages for patients and GPs but these now appear…
Brent Patient Voice was among the noisier patient groups pressing the NW London NHS to put the STP (Sustainability and Transformation Plan) submission of 30 June into the public domain. We had the clear impression that they would not agree to do this until the autumn, by which time the document would be “final”. Imagine our pleasant surprise when they suddenly told us that they…
Brent CCG is setting up a small new Consultant Geriatrician led Community Falls Prevention Service starting in November 2016. There will be a 3 year contract costing around £340,000 per year. The staff of 5 to 7 is to include an Occupational Therapist, Physiotherapist and Fracture Liaison Nurse. Brent Patient Voice welcomes this new initiative. It appears to us to be just the type of…
Information about “Sustainability and Transformation Plans” continues to filter out, though in a most unsatisfactory way – see our Episodes One and Two and the outline version of the NW London “Footprint” Plan submitted in April, all on this website. Brent CCG have now published in the Governing Body papers for 6 July an ‘Executive Summary’ of the NW London Collaboration of 8 NHS CCGs…
Since we posted our story about “Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs): knowns and unknowns” at the beginning of June we do know a little more. None of it is re-assuring and the questions and concerns we set out then remain entirely valid. When you appreciate that these plans are designed to cut local NHS budgets, fundamentally change the way GP services are delivered and bypass…
Sickle cell disease is the name for a group of inherited conditions that affect the red blood cells. The most serious type is called sickle cell anaemia. It has a higher presence among people of African and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Last year, following a high-level meeting involving councillors, the Clinical Commissioning Group, acute trusts and the Sickle Cell community in Brent – one of the largest…
BPV does not usually publish NHS information or publicity documents, partly because there are too many. Some contain too much spin. Occasionally we come across something really useful. An example recently sent to us by NHS England lists the rights we have as NHS patients and explains their basis. This begs the question as to whether the people and the money are there to deliver…