Dear Havering Councillors
On the Time Fm site
today BHRUT deny there is any new plan to close King George A&E
or that there is any cover up going on about the new plan to close
King George A&E.
The 2011 plan to close
King George A&E at
https://www.healthemergency.org.uk/peoplesinquiry/pdf/NE%20London%20Decision%20Making%20Business%20Case%2002%2012%2010%20FINAL%20V1.0.pdf
lists at page 27 £35.9M
of works at four hospitals to close King George A&E.
Rather than close King
George A&E, the word reconfiguration is used at page 11
“King George was
identified as the most suitable hospital to be reconfigured”. It is
the key code word for closure. A search for “reconfigur” shows
142 matches in the 2011 plan. Type in “close King” and zero
matches are produced.
I have attended BHRUT
board meetings for years and the word reconfigure always means close
King George A&E.
So the BHRUT claim that
a £49M plan to reconfigure King George A&E has nothing to do
with closing King George cannot bear scrutiny. The only way for BHRUT
to persuade anyone of their case is to publish the bid document, they
cannot do this because their case would fall apart.
The BHRUT denial on the
Time FM site is copied below:
The
trust has denied that the bid involved a proposal to close or
reconfigure the hospital.
A
spokesperson for BHRUT said: “The £49 million was to make a range
of improvements to urgent and emergency care at both hospitals,
including the emergency department at KGH, as well as increasing the
size of our assessment units and rearranging some of the ward
configurations – again across both sites – to improve patient
flow.”
Their
statement that the £49M bid has nothing to the plan to “reconfigure”
King George is false. Their very own denial says “rearranging some
of the ward configurations” which is another way of saying
“reconfigure” which means “close”
The BHRUT press
department remind me of the saying that diplomats are good men sent
abroad to lie for their country. BHRUT's communications staff may not
lie for the trust, but there can be no doubt that use language
differently from the rest of us.
The case of ambulatory
care at King George is an example. At first BHRUT denied, without any
qualification, the very existence of an ambulatory care unit at King
George regarding my claims of unlawful discrimination at the King
George unit . It was only when challenged with photographic evidence
did they clarify, that yes, there was an ambulatory care unit. The
exchange between BHRUT and me is at
https://twitter.com/Andywalker1945/status/1088844599752343555
So I stand by my claims
of a cover up at BHRUT per the email sent to email to Redbridge
Councillors last week and on Tome FM. Following my email Cllr Athwal
agreed to put up a banner at the Town Hall promoting the 30th
Save King George A&E rally.
We have Labour,
Socialist, Green and Trade Union speakers, we really need a
Conservative speaker to make for a cross party platform. Once a
Conservative party speaker is on board, we can approach faith
speakers. The ambition being to unite the political and faith
communities together to say the new plan to close King George A&E
must be stopped.
The Facebook event page
is at https://www.facebook.com/events/935452863511949/
Regards
Andy Walker
email follows
Dear
Councillors
Cover
up Claim
Yesterday
a group of us were outside King George Hospital for a photo shoot to
say the full bid document for the failed £49M bid for acute
reconfiguration at King George and Queens hospital be published
immediately.
After
the photo some of us went into the BHRUT board meeting to hear Cllr
Dodin ask the board to publish the bid document. The board declined
citing cost grounds and claimed that the £49M bid had nothing to do
with closing King George A&E. No comment was made on a recent
Health Service Journal article implying BHRUT was looking to pursue
this £49M bid by other means, presumably by land sales.
The
board statement denying the £49M bid has nothing to do with closing
KGH A&E does not stand scrutiny. Acute reconfiguration of King
George and Queens means closing King George A&E. There is
compelling evidence that the £49M bid is for preparatory works to
close King George A&E. My allegation is that the board are
conducting a cover up. If the bid were published in full it would
show BHRUT were planning to close King George A&E in direct
contradiction to their claim to be conducting an impartial review.
Once the truth of a £49M closure plan comes out, calls for the
review of King George A&E to be taken out of the hands of BHRUT
and put with independent experts will grow.
The
easiest way for BHRUT to refute my allegation is for them to publish
the bid.
The
Evidence for the cover up claim
I
quote from page 15 of the summary version of the Estates Strategy
Plan at
This
is the new plan to close King George A&E, but rather labelling it
as a closure plan, two options for change are given as follows:
Current
options for change
Queen’s
Hospital Queen’s Hospital has one of the busiest and
largest emergency departments in England, and so development at
Queen’s will be focused on emergency and acute
medicine, emergency surgery and acute children’s
services. In addition, maternity facilities could also be
expanded and developed to manage the continued growth in the
number of births in north east London. To facilitate this
development, the renal unit at Queens could be moved to the new St.
George’s hub with non-acute care of older people, and some elective
surgical services moved to King George Hospital.
King
George Hospital. We aspire to develop a new centre of
excellence for healthy ageing, working in collaboration with
community care, primary care and social services to offer a fully
integrated model of healthcare for older people. Centralising planned
care will increase the use of beds and theatres. These changes,
together with the adjacent Goodmayes Hospital site, create a
strategic opportunity to develop a coherent masterplan for housing,
education, community and primary health care, maximising land value
across the two hospital sites.” (my emphasis, note no future
for emergency and acute medicine at King
George)
&
then at page 18
“Sustainability
and transformation partnership capital funding A new national £2.6bn
capital fund was announced in the 2017 budget. In July 2018 STPs were
invited to submit funding bids for schemes with a total value of over
£100km, and schemes they aimed to deliver before 2022/23.
The
Partnership submitted bids for the following projects
• St
Georges Hospital – a new community hub
• Whipps
Cross Hospital redevelopment programme management costs
• St
James’s Health Centre new development
• Queens
and King George Hospitals reconfiguration £49M
• City
and Hackney primary care improvements
• Expansion
of Queens Hospital maternity unit £14M
• Children’s
and Young Person’s Assessment Unit at Queen’s Hospital £8M
• Barts
Health Orthopaedic Centre at Newham Hospital” ENDs
(my emphasis I have inserted costings obtained last month)
The
three options in bold regarding reconfiguration, maternity and
children all progress the so called “options” for King George &
Queens and make major steps to turn them into a reality.
BHRUT
have no difficulty with two of the these three bids doing what they
say on the tin. The £14M maternity bid is for maternity, the £8M
children bid is for children. The last bid and by the far the largest
at £49M is for reconfiguration, this has always meant works to close
King George A&E. For BHRUT to deny this claim is nonsense, unless
they are prepared to disclose the full bid document, which they are
not, a cover up is taking place.
Tonight
at full council, I ask Cllr Athwal to speak at a save King George A&E
meeting on the 30th March. His support on the
30th March would be very much appreciated.
It
would be great if you could attend the walk from King George Hospital
on the 30thMarch at 2pm to a meeting for 3pm at Ilford
Town Hall.
Regards
Andy
Walker
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