Come to 3rd June 7:15pm photo shoot at KGH to say the £25M plan for our hospitals be published

BHRUT are seeking £25M to invest in King George & Queens hospitals, but we don't know what it is for.

There is a Facebook event page below

https://www.facebook.com/events/2308456852752433/

The suppression of the £25M bid for the monies undermines our local democracy. I explain why in the email sent to BHRUT earlier today.

Dear Trust Secretary and Joe Fielder

After the last set of £70M bids for capital funding took months to be in the public domain, it is a welcome small step towards transparency that the public at least know in the same month the bid was made that BHRUT is seeking £25M of capital funding.

However, after consulting with others, the save KGH A&E/don't overload team have called a photo shoot for the £25M capital plan to be published now

The issue is that the NHS belongs to all of us, therefore we should know what is being planned for it so we can comment upon it, ideally before decisions are made.

I ask you publish the full plan later today. The focus of the photo shoot may then be supporting the BHRUT bid, although the £6M PFI component appears wrong, or to lobby for the £25M to be spent elsewhere.

£25M of public money is a substantial investment for our local health economy, I can see no reason why your plans cannot be published. The public cannot lobby our elected representatives to ask the department of health to release the funds until we know what the £25M is for. For instance, the £25M may be for new equipment to improve patient care, something everyone will want to support.

Councillor Berlin is the first senior elected representative to say the £25M plan should be published, I hope others will come on board too.

I have been speculating on social media and at a meeting yesterday on my Facebook page as to what the money might be in connection with the plan to close KGH A&E, The way to end speculation is to publish the £25M plan in full.

 I am sure others will speculate too about what this £25M is for until the plan is published.

The Francis report saw openness and transparency as the way forward to improve our NHS. BHRUT refusing to even say how much of this £25M you seek to invest in Queens and how much at King George runs counter to your duty to disclose information to the public. I am baffled as to why you will not share your plans for the £25M with us.

1) BHRUT Deceive Havering Council with Queens planning Application 2) Doodle poll for photo over mystery £25M bid by BHRUT 3) Petition if you know someone who lives/works Redbridge against Queens being overloaded

I sent the email below to Havering Councillors earlier today

Dear Councillors

1) BHRUT Deceive Havering Council with Queens planning Application 

I regret to inform you that BHRUT has a culture of deceiving elected representatives and the public when it comes to their plans for closing KGH A&E and so overloading Queens.

Yesterday I discovered that BHRUT put in a planning application to extend Queens which was passed in April 2018, the purpose of the extension was to close KGH A&E per page 34 of a failed £49M bid to close KGH A&E.

The deception was by omission, the application did not state that the application was part of a £49M bid to close KGH A&E. Nor were Havering told the plan was "radical" as it proposed transferring all patients to Queens as a result of the KGH A&E closure.The previous plan sent KGH patients to three hospitals, rather than just Queens.

The application gives the impression that the works are of no great consequence and routine improvements. Understandably your planning officers sign them off without them going before Councillors and the public at a hearing.

My view is that if the truth had come out Havering Councillors would have the very least requested further information at a hearing before making a decision. The application is valid for three years, the department of health has been led to believe that Havering Council supports the plan to close KGH A&E

More on this HERE

BHRUT misled Department of Health by cl...

Bear in mind BHRUT announced a review into the proposed closure of KGH A&E in Nov 2017, yet around 6 months later they are planning to close it.

 2) Doodle poll for photo over mystery £25M bid by BHRUT

BHRUT have put in a bid for works totalling £25M to the department of health earlier this month, £6M of this is PFI money. It seems almost certain that this money will advance the closure of KGH A&E and so overload Queens. However, this is just speculation, the way to end such speculation is for the bid application to be published in full.

There is a doodle poll below to sort out the best date for a photo shoot to call for the bid to be published if you would like to attend. I will write tomorrow when a date and time is agreed.

The poll is at Doodle: Publish the BHRUT £25M plan

Doodle: Publish the BHRUT £25M plan

And more information HERE

1) Doodle poll for photo shoot for £25M...

3) Petition if you know someone who lives/works Redbridge against Queens being overloaded

The petition is here

https://www.change.org/p/redbridge-council-stop-the-new-plan-to-close-king-george-a-e-so-overload-queens/dashboard?source_location=user_profile_started

I list key deceptions made by BHRUT regarding KGH A&E in the post below, none of them have been challenged by BHRUT.

http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/time-to-stop-deception-about-kgh-come.html

Regards

Andy Walker

BHRUT misled Department of Health by claims implying Havering Council support plan to close King George A&E

On 24th May I wrote an open letter to Matthew Hopkins and Henry Black to ask about my concerns that they had led the Department of Health to believe a "manufactured a planning consent" had been created in support of the £49M bid to close King George A&E per the link below:

http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/open-letter-to-matthew-hopkins-henry.html

I wrote on the 24th May

"On the face it, you have manufactured a planning consent that does not exist in order to promote your cause to close King George A&E. However, I stress "on the face of it", as perhaps there is reasonable explanation to conflict between what you have written and the Havering Council website.

I would be grateful if you could supply the evidence of your claims at your earliest convenience.

If you do not reply by midday 28th May, I will expect there is no such evidence and that you have misled the department of health."


I also put in a Freedom of Information request to Havering Council seeking the planning permission.

Yesterday,I got a reply from Havering saying the below

Question 1	I cannot find any information about the planning application made by BHRUT in June 2018 about Queens Hospital which was approved per the extract from a recent £49M bid to reconfigure KGH & Queens. Under Freedom of Information laws I seek: The application made which was approved in April 2018
Response	The application number is P0192.18 and further information about this application can be found at: https://www.havering.gov.uk/info/20034/planning/116/planning_searches/2
Question 2	The minutes of the meeting where Councillors approved the plans.
Response	The decision was delegated to officers and did not go to Committee.  The officer report can be found by searching the planning application P0192.18: https://www.havering.gov.uk/info/20034/planning/116/planning_searches/2

A search of Havering records shows detailed plans to extend Queens in order to cope with the closure of King George A&E.

However, the plans do not mention anything at all about the closure of King George A&E. BHRUT give the impression that the application is a routine one, and as a consequence, Havering planning department waive the application through on the nod without a hearing with Councillors.

This is deception by omission

This £49M plan is by BHRUT's own admission a radical one involving all of the King George A&E patients beong sent to Queens, rather than as before sent to three hospitals, does not feature in the planning application at all.

For BHRUT to imply that Havering Council supports the KGH A&E closure plan is a deception. Mr Black and Mr Matthews need to write to the Department of Health to make a correction.

This is not ancient history as the application is valid for three years. The Department of Health may be swayed by the wrong impression that Havering is on side for closing KGH A&E when it comes to making a decision about the mystery £25M bid which is still live.

1) Doodle poll for photo shoot for £25M bid document for KGH & Queens to be published 2) Are BHRUT deceiving the Department of Health by implying Havering Council Support for the £49M bid to close King George A&£? 3) Petition

I sent the below to Redbridge Councillors earlier

Dear Councillors

1) Doodle poll for photo shoot

On Wednesday 22nd May BHRUT published the £25M "Capital Plan Resubmission" (including £6M PFI money) below. My belief is this resubmission is to fund the new plan to close King George A&E. This plan is outlined in the East London Health and Care Partnership at (1). Three bids went in to implement the plan in 2018, all were knocked back. It seems likely that the the resubmission monies will partially progress the plan to close King George A&E. The way to stop such speculation is to publish the plan.

We own the NHS, and to ensure it is our NHS we need to know about the plans that are being made by NHS managers for our hospitals. A sports club, faith group etc would consult its members before seeking monies for an extension. Our NHS should be no different to allow consultation and the opportunity to put forward amendments and alternatives. 

I have written to BHRUT asking for the plan to be published and have been ignored.

 If you agree that the "Resubmission" made on 15th May needs to be published in full, I would be grateful if you could complete your available dates for a photo shoot at the doodle poll at the link. 

Doodle: Publish the BHRUT £25M plan

Doodle: Publish the BHRUT £25M plan Doodle is the simplest way to schedule meetings with clients, colleagues, or friends. Find the best time for one...

Extract from Board Papers below

 2) Are BHRUT deceiving the Department of Health by implying Havering Council Support for the £49M bid to close King George A&£?

The statement in question which appears bogus is at page 34 of the failed £49M bid  

“we have mitigated this risk through ongoing dialogue with the local authority planners in both affected councils (Havering and Redbridge) Havering have recently approved the planning application associated with the required works at Queen's Hospital (16 April 2018).”

I can find no evidence of this planning application being made or agreed by Havering Council. After going through the usual channels and got no satisfactory answers I have written an open letter per the link to Henry Black and Matthew Hopkins, the co-authors of the £49M plan. The letter asks for evidence to support their claim for planning application approval by 28^th May. If no evidence can be provided of this claim then BHRUT need to write to the Department of Health to withdraw the claim on the 29^th May as it may influence the new bid for £25M. More at:

http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/open-letter-to-matthew-hopkins-henry.html

Further examples of deception by BHRUT about the King George A&E closure, none of which have been challenged by BHRUT are at:

http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/time-to-stop-deception-about-kgh-come.html 

3) The petition calling on a consultation on the new plan to close King George A&E is at

https://www.change.org/p/redbridge-council-stop-the-new-plan-to-close-king-george-a-e-so-overload-queens

1500 signatures by June 5th secures a debate at Redbirdge Council on 20th June,

Regards 

Andy Walker

1) Extract from http://www.eastlondonhcp.nhs.uk/downloads/ourplans/estates/STRATEGIC_ESTATES_PLAN_summary.pdf 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 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.

2) Failed £49M plan at https://redbridgetradeunionparty.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/elhcp-bhrut-acute-reconfiguration-bid-foi-5926.pdf

Open Letter to Mr Hopkins & Mr Black re an apparent bogus planning consent made to support the case for closing KGH A&E

On 22nd May I went to the BHRUT board meeting to ask for evidence of the claims made by BHRUT that Havering Council has "approved" and "secured" the works to extend King George Hospital in the £49M plan to close King George A&E. The Chair, Joe Fielder refused to answer my question. Yesterday, I went to the Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group expecting to get an answer as Henry Black, a co-author of the £49M closure plan along with Matthew Hopkins, was there. However, this time the chair refused to let me speak.

Consequently my open letter to Matthew Hopkins & Henry Black follows:

Dear Sirs

Your Claims that Havering Council has approved works to facilitate the closure KGH A&E

I hope you can understand my unconventional approach of writing to you via a blog post. However, I have good reasons to write in this way as my attempts to get answers using public questions at BHRUT and Redbridge CCG board meetings have either been ignored or I have not been allowed to speak.

You write in your £49M bid document to close King George A&E the following.

&

However, I can find no evidence of any such applications on the Havering website.

On the face it, you have manufactured a planning consent that does not exist in order to promote your cause to close King George A&E. However, I stress "on the face of it", as perhaps there is reasonable explanation to conflict between what you have written and the Havering Council website.

I would be grateful if you could supply the evidence of your claims at your earliest convenience.

If you do not reply by midday 28th May, I will expect there is no such evidence and that you have misled the department of health.

The time frame is tight because this week, BHRUT reported a capital resubmission plan below

http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/has-bhrut-applied-for-22m-to-progress.html

The detail of the plan remains secret, and after consulting with other save King George A&E campaigners, I expect a photo shoot to be organised to say the new plan must be published.

Unless, we have evidence to the contrary, the photo shoot press statement will say the previous bid rested on a bogus claim implying BHRUT had the support of Havering Council.

And so it seems reasonable to believe that this bogus claim may have been repeated again in the secret bid document which requires immediate publication so the public and elected representatives know what is planned for NHS.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards

Andy Walker

Has BHRUT applied for £22M to progress the plan to close King George A&E?

Earlier today at the BHRUT board meeting the following was disclosed regarding a bid made last month by BHRUT to resubmit £25M of capital monies, including £6M of PFI funding.

To understand, what may be going on, it seems helpful to look at what happened at Stratford Town Hall on April 3rd where the following slide was presented.

 This suggests £22M if the funding is to for works for maternity and children's work at Queens.

The driver if this is the new plan to close KGH A&E at the estates strategy published last year per the extract below:

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. (my emphasis)

King George 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. ENDs

That this monies are earmarked as I outline is speculation, but by BHRUT not providing detail of the bids, speculation is bound to be invited.

We need to know what is going on asap and I will ask what is going in at the Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group tomorrow.

On the face of it, BHRUT is expanding services at Queens rather than King George without public consultation. Further expansion of acute care for maternity and children's services at Queens will make it easier for BHRUT to argue for the third part of their plan, the £49M bid to close King George A&E. 

More on this when I report back from the Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group tomorrow.

Inviting Euro Election candidates to July 20th Meeting

Dear Candidates

I am part of a team campaigning against the proposed closure of King George A&E.

More about this at http://savekinggeorgehospital.blogspot.com/2019/05/time-to-stop-deception-about-kgh-come.html

I invite to speak at the July 20th meeting at 3pm at Ilford Town Hall.

Regards

Andy Walker
07956 263088

Time to stop the deception about KGH A&E: Come to the July public meeting

Save King George Campaigners on 20^th March 2019 before a BHRUT board meeting earlier this year calling for the new KGH A&E closure plan to be published.

Years ago I attended a training session at a company introducing the concept of “salesman's truth”. This meant that the salesman believed with a passion that they sold the best product on the market and that their product was best for the customer. Anything else did not matter. This approach has been rife in business and has led to high profile scandals. The financial sector is a prime example: pensions, endowments, PPI etc were all sold on the basis of the salesman's truth. The mortgage backed bonds which were nearly worthless and led to the 2008 financial crash are another example of how damaging salesman's truth can be.

The NHS variant of “salesman's truth” is “manager's truth”. Anything can be said to protect it no matter now detached from reality the statement is. The NHS has been riven over the years by scandals where manager's truth has wrecked care for patients. The most famous is Mid-Staffs where a pursuit of Foundation Trust Status, became the manager's truth and care became the second priority per the link.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/06/mid-staffs-hospital-scandal-guide

The BHRUT statement in the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian on 8^th May by NHS managers is example of manager's truth.

The statement in the press article:

 “We want to be very clear, the threat of closure of the Accident and Emergency unit arising from decisions in 2011 has been removed. There will continue to be an Accident and Emergency unit at King George Hospital.”

This appears completely certain and beyond question, but with a little digging and examples of BHRUT manager truth it is clear it is misleading and false. The closure plan referenced below is at closure plan was published on 11th April 2019.

Three examples of BHRUT manager truth:

(1) Deceiving Mike Gapes and other elected representatives

An email dated 1^st March 2019 to Mike Gapes MP and other elected representatives from a BHRUT manager states:

The Wave 4 Capital Bid was not a bid to close King George Hospital (KGH)  A&E Department. The £49m 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.

This email is a deception and attempts to mislead elected representatives, and an example of BHRUT manager truth.

It is a deception because the the £49M bid which was published on 11^th April 2019 is clearly a plan to close King George A&E. The extract below is from page 4. Bullet points one and 2 make it clear that emergency ambulances are  no longer to go to King George Hospital.

The extract from page 7 below makes it clear that KGH is to become a Enhanced Urgent Care Centre at bullet point 1 under option 2 with a Ortho-Geriatric Receiving Unit at bullet point 3: 

Page 17 below consolidates emergency care at Queens in first sentence below

Page 18 below again talks of consolidating ED services at Queens.

Page 25 below shows at first bullet talks of the “elimination of the need” of a fourth Emergency Department in NE London. The paragraph of the bottom of the page shows the plan means Queens becomes one of the largest A&Es in the country.

(2) Jane Milligan's deceptive statement of 29th November 2017

The second example of BHRUT of manager truth is the statement by by Jane Milligan of 29 November 2017, this was spun in the press as a watershed moment by Wes Streeting MP. I and all other campaigners welcomed it too. It has been copied from the BHRUT website.

Dear partner/stakeholder,

I wanted to update you on the latest position regarding the A&E department at King George Hospital in Goodmayes. As you will know, the decision to replace the A&E with an Urgent Care Centre (UCC) was taken in 2011 and much has changed since then. Our east London population is growing and ageing, demand for NHS services continues to increase, and we face ever-increasing challenges as a healthcare system.

Following on from the recommendations in a strategic review undertaken recently by PWC, we now need to consider more options for the way we deliver urgent and emergency care across our communities. This will allow us to look at how this care is provided locally, taking these challenges into account. It is important we consider how we deliver these services across both King George and Queen’s hospitals to enable us to deliver care in the best way for patients. Exploring more options will enable us to do this. This is now an opportunity for us to work with our clinicians, patients, partners and stakeholders to develop a plan to make it easier for people to access the right services, deliver care sustainably, and address the challenges such as an ageing population and increasing demand on A&E services.

The model we finally adopt must provide excellent, safe patient care and meet the needs of local people now and well into the future. In the meantime, the existing A&E at King George hospital will continue to operate as now. I will continue to keep you updated of further developments.

Kind Regards,

Jane Milligan Chief Officer NHS Tower Hamlets CCG and Executive Lead for East London Health and Care Partnership (NEL STP) ENDs

This statement is more NHS manager truth. The reality is the new closure plan was agreed in 2016 per the extract below from page 7 of the £49M King George closure plan per the first sentence.

At page 10 below the depth of the sophistry becomes clear. BHRUT say the new closure plan is not “fundamentally different” from the 2011 plan and spent money on legal fees in autumn 2017 to keep the new plan secret! The current public position of BHRUT is this is not a closure plan, this extract shows BHRUT believes the exact opposite. The final sentence on the last line is a corker, showing what we thought was a genuine review into the future of King George A&E per Jane's letter of 29.11.2019 above was really a sharing of the “current status of the project” to close King George A&E.

What is jaw dropping is that Wes Streeting MP led a February 2018 Redbridge Council working party into the future of King George A&E and Jane Milligan hid from Wes that a new closure plan was agreed in 2016!

The working paper report (1) chaired by Wes runs to 110 pages and at page 4 lists contributions from ten BHRUT managers. It was prompted by a petition presented by me to Redbridge Council in January 2017. Not only was the plan hid from Wes and Cllrs, the new closure plan being also being implemented during the time Wes and Redbridge Councillors were preparing the report. Bullet point three below from page 12 of the closure plan explains why the ambulatory care ward at Erica Ward is restricted exclusively to the elderly frail as a small part of the plan to close King George A&E. The £1M works at Queens Hospital for additional facilities were completed in January 2018 (2) per the first paragraph below were completed before publication of the Redbridge Council report of February 2018.

(3) The deceptions about ambulatory care at Erica Ward

The third example of BHRUT manager truth is the deception about the restricting  ambulatory care at Erica Ward at King George Hospital to the elderly frail. Ambulatory care means same day emergency care, it is not to be confused with care provided by ambulance. When challenged about this BHRUT gave two responses. One response was to say ambulatory care at King George did not exist per the Freedom of Information request below.

BHRUT did withdraw denying the existence an ambulatory care unit after I sent them a photo of it below:

The second deception was the statement below in the Recorder of 18th October 2018

 “Due to the low levels of admitted adult patients from the Emergency Department at King George Hospital, a full ambulatory care unit is not required and we do not believe it would be the best use of our resources.

“It is more effective to centralise this service at Queen’s Hospital.

“Any increase in admissions or ambulatory support is monitored daily.

“However, due to the levels of demand from our frail elderly patients, we do offer a dedicated ambulatory care service for these patients at King George Hospital.” ENDs

We now know that refusing entry to younger patients at Erica Ward and so referring them to Queens was part of the new plan to close King George A&E per page 12 of the plan copied above at point 2 stating " A new pathway". 

The 27.9.18 extract from Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Group below could be a rough indication of the numbers going to Queens as a decision to exclude younger patients from Ambulatory care at King George. It is difficult know precise numbers. This is because when I challenged Chris Bown to produce an equality impact assessment of the decision to exclude younger patients from ambulatory care at a recent BHRUT board meeting he refused to do so.

How the target of closing King George A&E is damaging care

Page 66 of the Redbridge Council report of February 2018 shows around 160 beds cut from BHRUT as part of the preparation for closing KGH A&E (1) Page 23 of the same report shows an approximate drop in admissions at King George from 1500 a month in 2015 to 1300 a month by 2018.

This substantial capacity cut is a cause of the dismal type 1 performance stats at Queens and King George per the below.

Too many patients are being sent to Queens. There is evidence that long waits at A&E lead to worse patient outcomes, including longer lengths of stay and higher death rates per the link HERE

Save King George A&E/Don't overload meeting on 20th July 3pm Ilford Town Hall

BHRUT have for years been deceiving us about their plans for King George & Queens. Until senior NHS managers apologise for their past deceptions and accept the £49M plan to reconfigure King George Hospital is a closure plan for King George A&E we cannot believe BHRUT  claims that King George A&E is safe.

The Lambourne room at Ilford Town Hall has been booked for a meeting to say no to the closure plan and instead campaign for a King George to be extended and so relieve the pressure on Queens.

An early test of BHRUT credibility about King George is whether they will open more beds at King George to reduce the pressure on Queens along with ending the discrimination against younger patients for ambulatory care at King George.

The Francis report was a result of the poor care at Mid-Staffs, the report relied upon openness and transparency as guarantors of good care. BHRUT''s recent actions have trashed the values of Francis and they need to change their conduct. The recent decision by BHRUT to stop releasing bed numbers, critical bed occupancy rates and excess mortality rates for King George and Queens, rather than an aggregate rate reveals a commitment to secrecy rather than transparency.

It was ordinary people coming together at the photo shoot above and the meeting on 30th March that persuaded BHRUT to publish the new King George A&E closure plan. Keith Prince AM speaking at a BBC News interview on 30th March was very helpful as has been the support of Havering Councillors Dodin and Deon Burton along with Tower Hamlets Councillor David Edgar. Strengthening this coalition by 20th July is bound to increase the prospects of our campaign succeeding.

Any reply to this post by BHRUT will be posted on this site and BHRUT will be given an invite to speak on the 20th July.

1 – Redbridge Council report of Feb 2018 on King George Hospital athttp://moderngov.redbridge.gov.uk/documents/s113032/BHRUTEDScrutinyWGoutcomereport-final.pdf

2 “Queen’s urgent care centre (UCC) capital development completed 10 January 2018 and is supporting the delivery of 24 hour 7 days per week UCC at Queens' taken from page 77 of Joint Committee of Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge Clinical Commissioning Groups of March 2018. This is described at page 12 if the £49M as part of the closure program.

HERE