Hospital beds may go private

Under a scenario being considered by Lyn Hill-Tout, chief executive of the Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, if beds continue to stand empty in 2008, they could be leased to the private sector.

Mrs Hill-Tout said the Government was encouraging private health providers to set up in competition with the NHS.

At the moment, 36 of the 108 NHS beds in the Brunel Treatment Centre, which only opened in April last year, stand empty after drops in demand from Swindon and surrounding primary care trusts.

Another 20 are private beds.

The empty ward is fully equipped but Mrs Hill-Tout said there was no demand for the places.

She said the hospital would have to decide how best to compete with commercial competitors that set up near Swindon.

She said that could mean renting parts of the hospital to private companies.

While that would be letting the hospital's competitors take advantage of its facilities, that would be better than spending money on the upkeep of empty wards, Mrs Hill-Tout said.

She said the Government wanted to give patients more choice about who treated them and that included encouraging private health providers in the next two years under its Patient Choices programme.

Under the programme, patients can choose who provides their treatment and the NHS picks up the bill.

"If we can't fill the treatment centre ourselves we are looking at sub-leasing the space out," Mrs Hill-Tout said.

"If we generate private income it goes back in to the NHS."

The GWH already earns £4m a year from its private, paying patients' ward.

The hospital is also grappling with ways to clear the last £2.2m from its £12m deficit.

As revealed in the Advertiser last week, the hospital plans to cut 99 jobs and freeze another 99 vacant posts.

"Ninety-nine jobs will go," Mrs Hill-Tout said.

"We hope people will come forward for voluntary redundancy. We have 99 we intend to freeze.

"That should balance our budget."

Keeping the job cuts to under 100 means the hospital has to go to 30 days public consultation rather than 60.

"We have been keeping jobs vacant where we can without affecting clinical areas."

She said most jobs would come from back office areas like human resources, administration and IT.

"We are in to the consultation period now," she said.

"We have frozen administration and clerical jobs, lab jobs, some nurses but not ward nurses.

"Some you can freeze for a short period of time.

"We don't want to lose jobs then have to replace them with agency staff.

"Last year we spent £4m on agency jobs."

She said the agency staff had been needed to fill specialist roles like intensive care and mental health.

Mrs Hill-Tout said the jobs cuts would come from a hospital staff of 3,400 and frontline services would not be affected.

"If you need urgent or emergency treatment, come to the hospital," she said.

"We will always treat you.

"The issue is around elective care or out-patients."

She said the hospital had only been told there would not be enough demand to fill the treatment centre beds just before they opened.

"The commissioners said they didn't want to buy the level of service they thought," Mrs Hill-Tout said.

"We have spare beds and theatres that are unstaffed.

"The PCTs are buying to the maximum waiting time. You have to be treated within six months.

"The second issue is the PCTs have deficits and they don't have money to buy from us.

"We could treat their patients if they want us to."

She said the empty ward could be up and running in three months if the PCTs were willing to pay for more operations.

She said more than half of the hospital's patients' treatments were paid for by the Swindon PCT.

The rest come from the Kennet and North Wiltshire PCTs, which is currently struggling with a large deficit.

She said the PCTs were paying to get patients treated within the Government's six-month waiting list targets.

With large deficits, PCTs were not willing to spend any more money to get below those targets and have patients treated faster.

She said the Swindon PCT was also trying to send fewer people to hospital, having their GPs treat them instead.

"So fewer people will come to us," Mrs Hill-Tout said.

Union vows to fight job cuts

HOSPITAL union GMB is angry at the job cuts and freezes.

Swindon organiser Kevin Brandstatter said the £2.2m saving from 99 redundancies and leaving another 99 vacancies unfilled would hurt both staff and patients.

"The continued bungling ineptitude of the Government is now putting the health and well-being of people from Swindon and North Wiltshire at risk," he said.

"It is clear that patient care will be compromised by the cuts in staff at the hospital.

"There is no way that a hospital can lose so many jobs without disruption to patient care.

"The trust will obviously try to avoid compulsory redundancies by not filling these posts and by natural wastage, but when a nurse or health care assistant leaves and is not replaced there is one less person to look after patients.

"GMB will defend members' interests vigorously and intends to campaign against these unnecessary job losses."

Swindon GP Kandy Kandiah disagrees that the health service is in meltdown.

He said this country had the best free medical system in the world.

Dr Kandiah, a doctor at Sparcells Surgery in West Swindon, said he was very happy with the NHS.

"You realise the value of this health service in this country when you go overseas," he said.

"I don't find any problem at all.

"We get lots and lots of support from the PCT.

"I think we have an excellent health service in this country.

"I think the patients are still getting a good service."

Dr Kandiah said he supported the push to help patients long before they needed hospital treatment.

His surgery has two doctors and 3,100 patients on its books.

MPs' differing views on state of NHS

NORTH Wiltshire MP James Gray has hit out at the proposal to let commercial operators exploit NHS facilities.

The Conservative MP said the empty ward and job losses were part of the NHS mess created by the Labour Government.

"The health service in the area seems to be in meltdown," Mr Gray said.

"The Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT is £18m overrun.

"They are £28m in debt to the Government. They are making all sorts of cuts.

"If there was fat in the health area, why wasn't that cut out sometime ago?

"My suspicion is they are cutting services."

Mr Gray laid the blame for the NHS problems on the Government.

"They have been in power for nine years," he said.

"The health service has got worse and worse."

But South Swindon's Labour MP Anne Snelgrove said the NHS had made massive improvements since Labour came to power in 1997.

"Great Western Hospital has a good reputation, and recently brought waiting lists down to below six months ahead of schedule," she said.

"Before 1997 people had to wait years.

"I am confident this will keep improving.

"There are over 1,800 more nurses and 1,400 more doctors caring for patients in the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority since 1997."

She said the hospital management were working to make the job cuts as painless as possible for both staff and patients.

"I understand that this is a difficult time for staff," she said.

"I have been in close contact with the chief executive, the management are working to minimise any effect on frontline services."

She said she supported any plan that would give Swindon patients better care and value for money.

"My priority is better health for Swindon alongside better value for money for taxpayers," she said.

Cutbacks

• Swindon's Great Western Hospital is to cut 99 jobs and leave another 99 vacancies unfilled in a bid to save £2.2m. It has to cut its deficit from £12m to £2.2m.

• Under proposals from the Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT, Westbury, Devizes, Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge and Warminster community hospitals will all close and, depending on which option is pursued, Melksham and Savernake hospitals could also close, leaving just Chippenham Hospital open.

• Malmesbury Community Hospital's maternity and minor injury units has already been closed by Kennet and North Wiltshire PCT.

• In January, NHS bodies across the west had debts of more than £40m.

Kennet and North Wiltshire had debts then of £8.2m, South Wiltshire PCT £3.7m, Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust £1.7m and West Wiltshire PCT £7.5m.

Swindon PCT was then £540,000 in the black.