Update on personal health budgets in South-West London/Surrey

We received an excellent response to our blog post on personal health budgets, the poor media reporting of these budgets and what they may mean for health services in our area. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the blog post and share it.

We have now put in freedom of information requests with all six Clinical Commissioning Groups responsible for our end of South-West London/Surrey.

These are the questions they have been asked:

1. How many patients in the CCGs which come under SWLCC's administration are on personal healthcare budgets?

2. What is the average amount spent per patient on these budgets?

3. Can you provide a demographic breakdown of who uses these budgets?

4. Without naming patients, is there information available on what sort of treatments these budgets are funding?

5. What happens to a patient if their personal budget runs out and their health has not improved?

The six CCGs have 20 working days to respond to the FOI request. As such, we will report back on September 29 on any responses we have received.

Summer houses on the NHS? Cutting through the news reports with questions for our CCGs!

Sky News led its bulletin this morning with attention-grabbing headlines about summer houses, holidays and sat-navs being funded by the NHS. Sky News didn't actually research the story themselves - that was done by Pulse magazine, which investigated how personal healthcare budgets are spent. Plenty of other media outlets have also run this story including the BBC, the Mirror,

At least the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Independent mentioned that it is Clinical Commissioning Groups - or CCGs - that are allocating the money courtesy of the personal healthcare budgets. That would be the CCGs created under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. But you'd sooner find a report about the colonisation of the moon by unicorns wearing saddles made of cheese than ever see a news report mention this act, which was passed in the last parliament by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs.

Of course, the truth is rather more complicated than any of these reports imply. Credit where credit is due though - the Daily Mail, while not accepting comments on the article online, had the insight to run a decent Press Association report. This report featured an interview with a professor who pointed out that while personal healthcare budgets may seem attractive on the surface, they do reflect an ideology that is "consumerist and individualistic" and not evidence-based.

But the way this story has been largely reported serves insidious dual purposes.

1. It demonises patients in the same way that stories about misuse of A&E departments and GPs demonise patients. While misuse of A&E and GP services creates problems, it makes for cheap headlines that ignore the bigger funding issues. It is easier to mock the person who rocked up to A&E with dog poo on their shoe than get properly angry about things like the cost to the taxpayer of rotten PFI deals and administering the NHS marketplace, both of which squander billions of pounds each year.

While personal healthcare budgets are not compulsory, can we be sure that patients, especially vulnerable and elderly patients, are not pressured into joining this scheme? It has echoes of Jeremy Hunt's plan to put the price of medications on the packaging so we know how much we are costing the NHS every time we take a pill that we need to get better. This plays into the "mustn't be a burden" mentality, the fear of wasting NHS time, even if someone is in genuine need of care.

If these budgets are targeting the vulnerable, it becomes questionable as to whether they really meet the goal of helping people take responsibility for their health and wellbeing.

2. It is more NHS-bashing by the media, feeding into the public appetite for cuts. By highlighting summer houses, holidays and sat-navs, it makes people angry about profligate NHS spending and removes any subtlety from the discussion. A holistic approach to healthcare is important - and defenders of personal healthcare budgets will use this argument - but holistic treatments need to be evidence-based, especially when they are publicly funded.

Are personal healthcare budgets a sneaky way to funnel more money to the private sector right under our noses? Will patients be encouraged to use their budgets to fund private health insurance?

The Pulse report does not mention our local CCGs, which fall under the umbrella of South West London Collaborative Commissioning. But in the interests of full transparency, we have some questions for them about how they use personal healthcare budgets. As we are still fighting to keep essential services, such as A&E and maternity as well as entire hospitals open, these questions need to be answered.

If a representative from SWLCC could respond to the following questions in the comments section of this blog post, that would be much appreciated:

1. How many patients in the CCGs which come under SWLCC's administration are on personal healthcare budgets?

2. What is the average amount spent per patient on these budgets?

3. Can you provide a demographic breakdown of who uses these budgets?

4. Without naming patients, is there information available on what sort of treatments these budgets are funding?

5. What happens to a patient if their personal budget runs out and their health has not improved?

Dates for the diary! Screenings of Sell-Off

Sell-Off is an important independent documentary about what is really happening to our NHS. It helps explain why St Helier Hospital - as well as many other hospitals across the country - are currently under threat of closure or downgrading.

KOSHH has held several successful public screenings of Sell-Off and now there are two more coming up this month.

Diaries at the ready! Here are the dates!

Thursday 23 July, 1.30pm: There will be a screening of Sell-Off for the Merton Centre for Independent Living. 328 London Road, Mitcham. CR4 3FA

Wednesday 29 July, 7.30pm: There will be a screening of Sell-Off in the function room of the Morden Brook pub. Lower Morden Lane, Morden. SM4 4SS. There will be a Q&A session after the screening and, naturally, the bar will be open! The pub is located at the roundabout that intersects with Grand Drive - the one known locally as the Beverley Roundabout.

We'd love to see you at either of these screenings. It is a powerful film and everyone needs to see it.

What are we celebrating on #NHS67?

Today the NHS turns 67. It should be a proud day of celebration. We should be able to go about our business today relaxed in the knowledge that the NHS is properly funded, properly managed and always there for us when we need it. But we are living in curious times where, across the nation, campaigners are fighting for local services.

This is not how is should be on such an auspicious day.

We should not have to organise meetings in our communities to work out how we can keep our vital services, such as A&E and maternity, open.

We should not have to make Freedom of Information requests to find out from CCGs and hospital trusts how are money is being spent.

We should not see a penny of our money going to private consultancy firms, such as Deloittes, most of whom have clients with NHS contracts.

We should not be fobbed off when we ask questions about the impact of private contractors on our health services, such as private cleaning contractors and infection rates.

We should not have to remind people over and over again that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is destroying our NHS and that all MPs who voted for it need to be held to account.

We should not have to beg and plead with the major political parties to come up with policies for our NHS that does not involve moving to a US-style, insurance-based system.

We should not have to march on the streets to demand that big corporations, such as Google, Boots, Virgin and Amazon, pay their fair share of taxes on profits made in the UK so that the NHS can be properly funded.

We should not have to struggle to tell people that PFI deals and the massive cost of the internal marketplace are putting huge cost pressures on the NHS.

We should not have to remind people that while there may indeed be an argument for charging people for the NHS if they are not entitled to use it, that money will only cover 0.06% of the total budget, despite disproportionate media reports about "health tourism".

We should not have to read and watch endless NHS-bashing reports in the media that offer no balance and only serve to whet the public appetite for hospital closures.

We should not have a situation where too many good people are leaving the NHS because the conditions are becoming intolerable.

We should not have our hospitals relying heavily on agency staff instead of employing permanent staff.

We should not have to beg and plead with CCGs to hold meetings at times that are convenient for more people and to properly publicise their meeting times.

We should not have to constantly explain to people what CCGs are and how they hold the pursestrings for major decisions about our hospitals.

We should not have to hear about cuts being euphemistically described as "efficiency savings".

We should not feel so powerless nor feel like the closure of our local hospitals is inevitable.

We should not have to do any of these things. And yet we do. Because if we don't, we won't have our local hospital and we won't have an NHS either.




Photography by Alex Grichenko

Keep Our St Helier Hospital campaigners take to the streets of London!

KOSHH campaigner, Colin Crilly, reports on the peaceful anti-austerity march held in London on Saturday 20 June:

The anti-austerity march in Central London was huge. Estimates of the number of people marching were as high as 200,000 in the media. Amongst these people, there was a high number of NHS campaigners.

KOSHH campaigners, Brian Hennessy, Saleh Mamon and myself represented our campaign. We took turns holding up the KOSHH banner throughout the march. We were able to link up with other NHS campaigners, such as the Lambeth Keep Our NHS Public group. During the march, prominent campaigner and editor of NHS SOS, Dr Jacky Davis took my photo.

 When I arrived at Parliament Square, I saw a fire engine. Sure enough, Steve, who let us use the fire engine for a protest in Sutton last year, was at the wheel. He sent his regards to all KOSHH campaigners and gave me his number in case we want to use the fire engine in future actions.

The rally had high profile speakers, including: Charlotte Church, Owen Jones, Caroline Lucas, Jeremy Corbyn and Russell Brand. At the finale, the crowd was encouraged to go into their communities to continue working hard and spreading the word.

Here are some more photos from the march.

On Wednesday July 8, there will be a further protest against an emergency budget from George Osborne - that is sure to bring more worrying news for our health services. Click here for more information.

Click here to order a copy of Dr Jacky Davis and Raymond Tallis's book, NHS SOS.