Secret plans to radically change NHS services across Oxfordshire have been revealed in full for the first time in a leaked document.
In a bid to save millions of pounds, health bosses want to reduce the number of qualified nurses, give ‘new roles’ to Oxfordshire’s community hospitals and cutting the number of beds in hospitals.
Officials planned to delay publishing the document, which also covers Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, until January but ‘concerns about transparency’ led Reading Borough Council to release it early.
It comes as bosses from Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group – the body leading reforms – are due to face questions from a panel of councillors on the plan today.
Ahead of the meeting, protestors will march on County Hall against the ‘cuts prepared in secret’.
Last night Oxford East MP Andrew Smith called for ‘proper public consultation’ on the ‘sustainability and transformation plan’ (STP), which had only been partly disclosed before.
Mr Smith said: “With all the financial pressures the NHS and social care are under, a real problem with these plans is the fear that they are cover for centrally-imposed cuts and further privatisation.
“People are bound to be concerned to learn of plans for fewer qualified nurses and vague changes to the role of community hospitals.
“So it is crucial that there is proper public consultation on all this.”
There was also an angry backlash from the Labour group of Oxfordshire County Council, which is due to propose a motion describing consultation with the public so far as ‘derisory’.
A spokeswoman for OCCG yesterday said it had aimed to ‘share as much information with the public as we can’.
She added: “Along with the other STP footprints, we are expected to follow the national process set out by NHS England with regards publication.
“We plan to publish a summary in coming weeks and, as the full plan requires further work, expect this to be published in early 2017, following agreement with NHS England.”
Eddie Duller, chairman of Healthwatch Oxfordshire, yesterday welcomed the document’s publication and said the watchdog had ‘objected very strongly to the secrecy involved’.
He said: “We believe the proper way to consult people is to get all the details out to the public as soon as possible.”
The draft STP, which is 160-pages long, has not previously been made available.
It says much of the savings would come from prevention and a shift of focus from hospital care to care at home or in local communities.
The document adds: “The Government has asked us to do this as there are a number of challenges facing the NHS that require us to transform the way in which we provide local services and ensure local communities are the healthiest they can be.”
Changes proposed include moving ‘acute activity away from the John Radcliffe and Horton hospitals’ and a ‘redesign of community hospital care’.
It also says controversial changes at the Horton in Banbury were likely, in obstetric services and paediatrics.
Across all three areas, ‘workforce savings’ of £34m were also proposed, such as ‘skill mix changes to support a more flexible workforce’.
It said this meant a ‘reduction of nursing grade input’ and ‘increased use’ of less-qualified healthcare assistants and ‘physician associates’ who support doctors.
One doctor, who spoke anonymously, said: “There are not enough doctors and nurses as it is.
“There is a genuine concern among a lot of us that the consequence will be patients are less safe than they were.”
Article originally published by the Oxford Times
