Fears over North health body axe plan
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A PLAN to wind up the North Highland Community Health Partnership should be regarded with “extreme concern”.
Derrick Milnes, who chairs the Thurso and Wick Trades Union Council, expressed his disquiet after it emerged the CHP is set to be axed next year.
Following a review, NHS Highland has recommended that the North Highland CHP should cease to exist as from the end of March along with the Mid CHP, the South East CHP and the Raigmore Hospital committee.
They would be replaced by one organisation which would cover the Highlands. A separate body would be responsible for Argyll and Bute.
However, the proposed changes would have to be approved by health secretary Nicola Sturgeon.
The proposal comes as the North Highland CHP faces a deficit of over £1 million at the end of the current financial year.
That figure could rise in 2012
It also provides some acute services, including a wide range of outpatient and inpatient services at North hospitals.
The current system has been in place for the past five years.
The review was undertaken following the recent agreement between the the NHS and the Highland Council to deliver an integrated health and social care service as from April next year.
Mr Milnes said the trades council would like to get more information on the proposals but expressed concern about the implications for patients and staff.
He said the move could lead to job losses for employees and managers and wondered if the plan would result in “the centralisation of all services into the headquarters in Inverness”.
“We view these plans with extreme concern,” said Mr Milnes, “especially considering the difficulties we have in Caithness at the moment and at a time when there are plans for closer integration between NHS Highland and the Highland Council.” However, Landward Caithness councillor David Flear described the community health partnerships as “paper tigers” and said a number of them “are not working that well”.
Under the proposed plan, new groupings would be set up to represent the public. These bodies would comprise patient representatives as well as councillors and others.
“If they are set up properly they could have more impact than the CHPs do at the moment but they would have to have a proper input,” added Mr Flear.
Commenting on the reorganisation plans, North Highland CHP general manager Sheena Macleod, said: “We are looking at a number of areas, including shared organisational and management structures and opportunities to have closer involvement with the voluntary sector to develop services that support shifting the balance of care.”
On the projected deficit she stated: “There is a recovery plan in place but this will take time to implement.”
Colin Punler, a non-executive board member who chairs the existing North Highland CHP, said: “The barriers that exist between the health service and council services will start to come down in April.
“But there are barriers inside the health service between different parts of the Highlands, too, and the reconfiguration of the existing CHPs will remove those as well.”
Mr Punler said the new system would provide an opportunity to redesign services across the Highlands and give “the best possible outcomes for patients at a time of unprecedented pressure to control costs”.
He argued that the involvement of the public would expand at a local level through the creation of new groups in every district.
“These offer a real opportunity to get the public more involved in the redesign of health and social-care ?services.
“The board wants to see these become fully effective,” he continued.
“The NHS in Caithness and Sutherland will be £1m overspent at the end of March. The carry-forward means £2.7m of costs will need to be stripped out next year. That’s unsustainable in such a small CHP and is one of the reasons the existing CHP is likely to be wound up at the end of March.”
But he claimed that integration with social care and removal of some barriers inside the NHS in April will increase the scope to achieve the savings required without damaging patient care.
CAITHNESS GENERAL COULD GET MORE WORK
SERVICES at Caithness General Hospital in Wick could be expanded, it has emerged.
North Highland CHP general manager Sheena Macleod said yesterday: “We are reviewing the workload that is undertaken by Raigmore Hospital in Inverness to find out whether some of it is clinically appropriate to be transferred to Caithness General Hospital.”
She added: “There has been a lot of investment in Caithness General in recent years.
“We now undertake cataract surgery and we have a renal dialysis unit capable of treating up to 16 people at any time.
“We also have a state-of-the-art CT scanner and are increasing the range of procedures for which it is used.”
