We can't allow other hospitals to go the way of Trafford. Flickr/Nick Conneff. Some rights reserved.I’m a member of Tameside (Greater Manchester) Keep Our NHS Public and my local Patient Participation Group (PPG). In July I attended 6 meetings in one week connected to KONP. Over 40 years in Social Work I’ve worked in 9 hospitals, with people with disabilities and older people. Current Health and Social Care policies seriously concern me: hence all the meetings.
These meetings opened my eyes. The government is devolving a £6bn budget to the ‘Greater Manchester Combined Authority’ next April. All Greater Manchester Local Authorities and all Clinical Commissioning Groups must work together within this budget. They’re somehow expected to save money, reducing the use of hospital beds, following the government’s mantra of “paying off the deficit”.
I’ve seen NO open discussion locally about how ‘Integrated Care’ can work. Heavy cuts have been made to Local Authorities’ Adults Services' budgets, and are truly worrying. A 13 July Panorama programme ‘NHS: The Perfect Storm’ showed the ramifications of such cuts threatening care provision for the elderly in Liverpool. Samih Kalakeche, Liverpool Director of Adult Services and Health admitted “having sleepless nights” about this: his budget was cut by £100million.
