St John’s closure put on hold

Dear Sir, 

Your story last week on “St John’s closure put on hold” made a welcome contrast to the “PCT’s view”, reported the previous week. 

Richmond now gets a copper-bottomed commitment and pledge from its Primary Care Trust that there will be a “full public consultation on the future of St John’s Hospital.”  Previously only “regular contact” had been promised - a far remove from the PCT’s statutory duty to consult (that is reasonable to expect when a hospital closure is threatened). 

Secondly this “public consultation will take into account the forthcoming National Strategy for Dementia” - for which a preliminary consultation paper will be published in June. 

Every credit has to be offered Vince Cable, Twickenham MP, for securing a Westminster Hall debate on these issues, and for persuading Health Minister Ivan Lewis of the merits of St John’s exceptional health services, and through him, Richmond’s PCT that something more than “regular contact” was required.  If, by comparison, the Council and its Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee has been slow in getting its act together, it now has the time. 

Could I make two further points.  Patients suffering from severe dementia and/or challenging behaviour have always been eligible for “continuing NHS care”, funded by PCTs but provided by such trusts as SW London St George’s MH Trust.  Now that those costs are being questioned, why can’t St George’s, with all their clinical and caring expertise over many years, put forward their own contribution to the tendering process?  A failure to do so has to be seen as an admission of incompetence or dereliction in the NHS’s strategical direction. 

The Health Minister referred in the debate to the “Putting People First” concordat, agreed before Christmas between local government and the NHS. 

It proposes a radical transformation, in the next three years, in the “partnership of the social care system with the NHS”.  It has one unquestionable objective, switching the funding of many, mainly community, health services from income tax to council tax - and worse than that, passing difficult political decisions onto the private sector to resolve.  Such is the dearth of information provided their constituents, is it not councillors, rather than central Government, that can be accused of stealth? 
 

Yours sincerely 
 
 
 

 
Francis King