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PRESS ARTICLES

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Maternity Unit Under Threat Again
May 9th 2007
Grantham hospital's maternity unit is again under threat after health managers published proposals for the future of healthcare in Lincolnshire.
full article

Preservation of A and E receives cautious welcome
April 2nd 2007
full article

Trust plans staffing cuts to reduce costs
February 9th 2007
full article

New rules for patient admittance
February 9th 2007
full article

Future of Grantham Hospital depends on outcome of public consultation
February 9th 2007
full article

Who can't go to Grantham Hospital in an ambulance any more?'
February 9th 2007
full article

Pilgrim will keep its key services
May 16th 2007
PILGRIM Hospital's long-term future as a full district and general hospital has been assured following the publication
full article

'WHERE WAS CONSULTATION OVER AXING?'
February 9th 2007
Councillors have criticised a decision by NHS managers to suspend emergency surgery at a hospital.
full article

ANOTHER NAIL IN YOUR HOSPITAL'S COFFIN
February 9th 2007
Emergency general surgery will be withdrawn from Grantham Hospital by the end of March – and hospital insiders fear it is the beginning of the end for A&E
full article

HOSPITAL CRISIS - 'JUGGLING WITH PEOPLE'S LIVES'
February 9th 2007
Cutting emergency general surgery at Grantham Hospital will create a domino effect which will see the closure of A&E within one year, according to hospital insiders
full article

Hospital moves to suspend surgery
February 8th 2007
Emergency general surgery is to be suspended from the end of March at a Lincolnshire hospital (Grantham) because it says it cannot provide safe patient care.
full article

Mum + doctor = sensible birth practice
February 7th 2007
Childbirth has leapt from the outer reaches of the NHS, where I and many other mothers have laboured in what I can only describe as the Dark Ages, on to centre stage.
full article

A threat to new mothers
February 7th 2007
A report recommending the radical "reconfiguring" of maternity care by the Government's chief adviser on childcare and maternity services, Dr Sheila Shribman, is tendentiously titled Making It Better for Mother and Baby. Expectant mothers may wonder how the closure of many hospital maternity facilities could possibly benefit them or their families.
full article

Maternity crisis : ministers who won't toe the line
February 7th 2007
At least a dozen members of the Government are fighting NHS closures of maternity units, A&E departments, wards and cottage hospitals in or near their constituencies .
full article

Plans to strip hospitals of maternity units
February 7th 2007
Women in labour could face lengthy journeys by ambulance to distant specialist units under plans which would strip dozens of local hospitals of consultant-led maternity services. Department of Health proposals unveiled yesterday seek a smaller number of consultant units to deal with the most complicated births and the sickest babies.
full article

Watchdog condemns deal behind health choice scheme
February 6th 2007
A groundbreaking deal with the private sector to provide millions of patients with information on the best hospitals and GPs in Britain is condemned today by a parliamentary watchdog as poor value for money and breaking almost every rule designed to protect the taxpayer.
full article

Childbirth shakeup means NHS unit closures
February 6th 2007
Plans for a drastic reduction in the number of NHS hospitals in England providing full childbirth facilities for mothers and specialist medical care for children will be announced by the Department of Health today.
full article

A&E Waiting figures being fiddled
February 6th 2007
The four-hour A&E target is being "fiddled" by "dubious management tactics", academics say.
full article

Big shake-up for maternity care
February 6th 2007
Some English hospitals should be stripped of doctor-led maternity care and specialist children's services, a government adviser says
full article

Natural selection will save the NHS
January 24th 2007
Received wisdom has it that introduction of general management in the NHS in the 1980s was a good thing. But Aidan Halligan, the former NHS director of clinical governance who quit the Department of Health last year, has come to the view that putting doctors and nurses in charge is the only way to save the service.
full article

Doctors angry at plan to assess patients at private clinics
January 24th 2007
GPs will lose the right to refer NHS patients for assessment at a hospital outpatient clinic under plans that were condemned by the British Medical Association yesterday as a step too far in the creeping privatisation of the health service
full article

Tories pledge to scrap NHS targets
January 24th 2007
David Cameron vowed to put GPs "in the driving seat" today as he unveiled plans to scrap most national health service targets and put doctors in charge of their own budgets
full article

Hewitt sparks pay row with GPs
January 20th 2007
Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, risked a head-on clash with the British Medical Association yesterday by suggesting that GPs in England are making too much profit on work for the NHS.
full article

GP pay could be capped
January 19th 2007
NHS managers are to consider capping GPs' pay as they negotiate changes to their contracts, it was confirmed today.
The news came hours after the health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, said that, with hindsight, she wished GPs' earnings had been capped.
full article

Maternity care row over hospital closures in Blair's back yard
January 19th 2007
Two big NHS hospitals serving Tony Blair's constituents in south Durham are to be closed after a fierce row over which of them should provide maternity services, it emerged last night.
full article

Brown can’t cure this paralysed NHS, so he plans to privatise it
January 14th 2007
The former Granada boss Sir Gerry Robinson recently spent six months trying to reform Rotherham general hospital. The result was shown in three hours of fly-on-the-wall television on BBC2 last week. It was rightly put after the watershed: as politics it was certificate 18. At the end of each day Robinson could be seen slumped in the back of his car, his face buried in his hands. A tycoon sobbing in a limousine is the perfect icon of Labour’s health service. .
full article

Value for money in the NHS
January 23rd 2007
The former Granada boss Sir Gerry Robinson recently spent six months trying to reform Rotherham general hospital. The result was shown in three hours of fly-on-the-wall television on BBC2 last week. It was rightly put after the watershed: as politics it was certificate 18. At the end of each day Robinson could be seen slumped in the back of his car, his face buried in his hands. A tycoon sobbing in a limousine is the perfect icon of Labour’s health service. .
full article

FIGHT HEALTH CUTS - BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
January 24th 2007
I Was slightly baffled at the response of Sleaford councillors Brian Watson and Peter Haysum (Target, December 20) and Coun Graham Smith to the cuts in local NHS services.
full article

HOSPITAL'S FUTURE IS STILL UNCERTAIN
January 24th 2007
THE future of the Accident and Emergency department at Grantham Hospital remains unclear after county health managers held a crunch meeting last Wednesday.
full article

Floods 'threat to our future'
January 24th 2007
THE future development of Boston is under threat after a potentially devastating new report into the town's long-term flood risk.
full article

Revealed: the 11 government ministers fighting NHS cuts
January 13th 2007
At least 13 members of Tony Blair's ministerial team have campaigned over the last few months against closure of services at NHS hospitals used by their constituents, a Guardian survey has revealed
full article

Maternity cash cut amid boom in birthrate, say midwives
January 9th 2007
The NHS is responding to a boom in the birthrate by cutting spending on maternity services, the Royal College of Midwives said yesterday after a survey of more than 100 heads of midwifery in hospital trusts across Britain
full article

Blair and Hewitt defend hospital closures
January 5th 2007
The prime minister said the best care on offer was at specialist centres, although he admitted there was always going to be debate about local reconfiguration of services
full article

NHS facing glut of consultants and Nurse shortages
January 5th 2007
Leaked government documents forecasting a glut of NHS hospital consultants and an acute shortage of nurses provoked fury last night among doctors' and nurses' leaders
full article

Operating lists shut at hospitals
January 4th 2007
Nearly 20 operating lists at hospitals across Lincolnshire are being closed for three months to try to help balance the books.
full article

Bosses calm fears over superbug
January 4th 2007
Hospital bosses in Nottingham have reassured staff, patients and visitors that measures are being taken to stop the spread of a superbug
full article

Fight To Stop Hospital Cuts Hotting Up
January 2nd 2007
A SLEAFORD councillor is backing the campaign to save services at Grantham and District Hospital.
full article

Minister defends hospital protest
December 28th 2006
Cabinet minister Hazel Blears has defended her decision to take part in a protest over plans to close part of a hospital in her constituency.
full article

Superbug is huge problem
December 28th 2006
NOTTINGHAM The number of patients contracting the Clostridium difficile superbug may cause huge problems for the NHS, a coroner said.
full article

Cabinet Minister joins protest over hospital
December 28th 2006
The cabinet minister Hazel Blears is petitioning the health secretary to stop the closure of maternity services in her constituency under an NHS reorganisation. Her intervention is deeply embarrassing for the government, coming at a time when it is attempting to prove to the public that reconfiguration of the health service is vital to improving care.
full article

24hr surgeries to the rescue
December 12th 2006
Super-surgeries, open 24 hours, could be part of a future NHS, one of Britain's senior surgeons said yesterday.
Prof Ara Darzie, a leading cancer specialist and surgical adviser to the Department of Health, believes that more illness should be treated outside hospital.
full article

It is broke, so fix it
December 12th 2006
It was hoped that tough accounting rules might do for the health service what being tied to the mast did for Odysseus. Just as he was protected against the lure of the sirens, so the health service would be protected against the temptation to which it has traditionally fallen prey: to solve every problem with a cash bail-out. But yesterday, along with optimistic plans to move the NHS as a whole into surplus, came the admission that the financial binds being imposed were "unsustainable" for many individual trusts - these are rules that cannot and will not be kept. Having acknowledged that the system was broken, however, there was no move by the government to fix it.
full article

NHS Chief admits flawed accounting behind deficits
December 12th 2006
The head of the NHS in England admitted yesterday that its accounting system was "unsustainable and inconsistent", forcing the weakest hospital trusts into a vicious cycle of spiralling deficits
full article

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE: 'SAVE OUR HOSPITAL'
December 12th 2006
TWO Sleaford councillors have joined the campaign to save services at a Lincolnshire hospital
full article

PUBLIC CONSULTATION

OUR COVERAGE OF THE
CONSULTATION

also Quentin Davies MP has passed his comments to us view them here
 

PUBLIC CONSULTATION
9th May-9th August 2007

Remember the Wyndham Park Rally and what we were fighting for ?


 

Granthams population to rise significantly!
At the same time as the public are being asked to 'consult' on the plans for Health Services in the region we are also being asked to consult over plans which could lead to Grantham's population expanding by as much as 16,000 over the next five to ten years. Thats an increase approaching 40%!!! Read the council documents and comment here this should have an impact on the PCT consultations for health care.

Public Consultation begins : May - August 2007
Finally the public consultation begins. The long awaited documents have been released by the Primary Care Trust and we now enter a period of careful study to formulate a full and accurate response to these proposals.

Don't forget - the consultation period starts in April 2007 !!
With all the excitement caused by the 'suspension' of Emergency General Surgery it is important to remember that the consultation period with the Primary Care Trust and ULH Trust begins in April 2007. This will decide the future of MATERNITY, A&E, SURGERY and WOMENS & CHILDREN'S services.

Emergency General Surgery 'suspended'
8th February 2007
Today the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust announced that as of the end of March 2007 all emergency general surgery will be suspended at Grantham hospital.
For more information click here

Maternity 'spin' rolled out by government
6th February 2007
The government today announced the turn of local Maternity services for their regional super centre plans. We are being drip fed government policy piece by piece giving justification to savage cuts across the country. This article comes in complete contrast to their old policy which linked local care and local midwives to stress free and successful births.

The government have decided this policy months ago but are not willing to bundle all this bad news together at the same time as the previous announcements regarding A&E, Major operations etc.

Watch the Hewitt Interview

 

Meetings Begin
12th January 2007
The Primary Care Trust and United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust have started holding meeting to discuss the future of services within Lincolnshire. Members of the GHDC are invited to some of these meetings and will hopefully assertain what ULHT's proposals will be.

Emeritus consultant anaesthetist Clive Cory backs Critical Care Unit staff
8th December 2006
As reported in the Grantham Journal, Clive Cory, an international specialist anaesthetist who worked at Grantham for 20 years, has written to David Bowles (United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust Chairman) backing the Critical Care Unit staff and refuting Gary Walkers claims that Level 3 care never existed at Grantham Hospital. The Trust were unavailable for comment.

Trust move headquarters to Lincoln from Grantham Hospital
4th December 2006
The United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust has moved headquarters from the Grantham site to Lincoln. This move was a recommendation of the Trusts turnaround plan (which we are assured has been scrapped) and cost around £120,000. The move is seen as freeing up space on the Grantham site which the trust intend to lease to business or sell. (They refer to the Grantham site as underutilised).

Chief Executive discredits Critical Care Unit staff at Grantham Hospital
1st December 2006
Gary Walker, the Chief Executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust still maintains that Grantham Hospital has never had a level three standard Intensive Care Unit. Current staff on the unit have (very bravely given the past performance of this trust) written an open letter to the current Chief Executive in response to his very public comments in the Grantham Journal (November 24th). View the letter here

There will be many members of staff, past and present, who will feel Mr Walker's comments are both incorrect and improper at a time when the jobs of all those within the unit and other related wards within the hospital are under threat.

Mr Walker has now publicly stated the service provided was of poor quality and never level three care standard. However, if you read this document written by the current trust Chief Medical Officer (Keith Sands) from January 2003 he refers to level 3 beds at Grantham Hospital. Document : Critical Care Unit Grantham. Author : Keith Sands, Medical Director.
This review contained the following conclusion regarding closing down the Unit : "Option 4 – Closure of critical care services – This would have serious repercussions on the activity of the hospital and for the population of Grantham." This quote from 2003 has surely not changed that much in three years?

Non Executive Directors
29th November 2006
It was announced today that the seventh and only remaining Non-Executive Director of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust has resigned. In a remarkable few weeks all the Non-Executives have resigned. Why?

OUR CAMPAIGN NEEDS YOU !
7th November 2006
Without the people of Grantham and surrounding area supporting us and joining in the campaign then the hospital and its major services will be lost. We can achieve great things together but we only have a short time for action.

If you feel you can help or would like to join in anyway please email us.

We are making good progress
30th October 2006
Progress is being made by the various committees tasked with researching all aspects of the NHS in Lincolnshire leading to our ability to put forward the best case for the Hospital possible. We strongly believe the hospitals services should be retained and some which have recently been removed should be reinstated.

Grantham to become a 'new growth point'
27th October 2006
Grantham has been named by the government as one of 45 towns and cities across the UK for future growth.

Adding more pressure on ULH Trust to listen to the people and case for the town and surrounding area this proposed development of an additional 2,750 homes with 6,300 in South Kesteven will add more weight to the case for the future of Grantham Hospital.

Committee members at the United Lincolnshire Health Trust Annual Meeting
2nd October 2006
Members of the committee and several other members of the Grantham public attended the trusts annual public meeting in Lincoln on Wednesday (27th Sept '06)

In this meeting the Grantham contingent put forward some testing questions and discovered that the board have had to rethink the initial strategic options of the turnaround plan. This plan has been agreed by the board and was going to form the basis of the reductions to Grantham's A&E, Maternity unit etc.

A new plan will be put forward in due course once the new Chief Executive is in place (Early October).

It should be noted that certain members of the trust board refer to Grantham hospital as having 'under-utilised' land and the need to make full use in a commercial sense of the trusts assets. This can only mean either leasing buildings and land on the Grantham site or worse!! (the last time land was said to be under-utilised they were referring to the old nurses home and surrounding complex which was sold off for housing).

The board agreed to consult and listen to public concerns prior to the publication of the consultation document in order to involve the public groups as much as possible in the turnaround plan process.

It is pleasing the trust board members accept that communication is the best way. This does not, however, mean a different result will occur next April.

We shall see how the consultation unfolds....

Also see Quentin Davies MP comments on the latest developments



Nottingham Rally
23rd September 2006
The rally in Nottingham saw various public speakers denounce the government plans for speedy hospital reform and focused on the cash crisis being created in the NHS.

A highlight for the campaign saw Peter Gibson interviewed on East Midlands Today (BBC) where he highlighted the protest against cuts to Grantham Hospital.

The coach was sponsored by The Olde Barn Hotel, Marston. Many thanks. 

Plan for wave of closures of NHS services
The NHS is preparing a wave of closures of key hospital departments across England in the run-up to the next general election, its new chief executive told the Guardian in his first interview since starting the job.
read the article
 
Useful links
Grantham Business Club
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Grantham Journal
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Labours lethal logic
December 6th 2006
Yesterday, the Prime Minister attempted to persuade people that having to travel further for medical help in emergencies would be good for them. The apparently bizarre logic of this argument rested on the premise that highly specialised "super-regional" (i.e., not local) centres of excellence are the best places to treat such life-threatening events as heart attacks and strokes. Many accident and emergency departments would be closed as full-scale emergency facilities and replaced by minor injury units.
full article

'Saving' hospitals costs lives
December 5th 2006
Campaigns to save services currently provided in district general hospitals could lead to more than 1,000 unnecessary deaths each year, according to new analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr), published later this month.
full article
*Note* The IPPR is described here as you can see it has close links to the government although they 'claim' to be independent.

Blair : NHS must change
December 5th 2006
Tony Blair today defended the government's controversial reform plans for the NHS and predicted that the "best is yet to come".
Speaking to the NHS Confederation, the prime minister appealed to NHS managers and doctors to make the case for further reforms and help convince people of the clinical arguments for A &E closures.
full article

Seventh NHS Trust Non-Executive resigns
November 30th 2006
Angry hospital chief Bill Baker has written a scathing letter of resignation to the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.
full article

Blair - Keep up A&E fight
November 30th 2006
TONY Blair has urged people in Buckinghamshire to fight any proposals to close A&E services at Wycombe Hospital every step of the way.
full article

Where the Government is feeling the heat
October 26th 2006
Grassroots protests against hospital cuts and NHS reorganisations across England have in recent months become the most widespread and prolonged unrest since the poll tax revolt in 1990.
full article

NHS cuts twice as likely in Tory and Lib Dem areas
    
full article

The Weakest Link
October 12th 2006
A Health watchdog has delivered a devastating blow to a "weak" and debt-ridden Lincolnshire health trust.
A new report has blasted United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, which is mired in £11.8m of debt and still reeling from a waiting lists scandal that saw its chief executive suspended.
full article

Closure fear over hospital plan
September 18th 2006
Doctors fear stripping hospitals of key services such as A&E will lead to the eventual closure of the sites.
full article

Papers reveal plan to halve number of A&E hospitals
Thursday, 14th September 2006
Campaigners opposing cuts at Grantham Hospital handed over a petition of nearly 25,000 signatures at 10 Downing Street on Saturday.
full article

NHS cash crisis puts 43 maternity units under threat
December 12th 2006
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, was accused of failing tens of thousands of expectant mothers last night as it emerged that 43 maternity units across the country have been shut down or face the threat of closure.

Miss Hewitt faced criticism after a report revealed that around one in six of England's 282 maternity units could be shut by NHS trusts which are battling huge deficits.
full article

MAP of maternity units under threat


Treat more patients at home, says NHS report
December 7th 2006
Some patients with life-threatening conditions, including ectopic pregnancies and blood clots on the lung, should normally be cared for at home by GPs and visiting nurses instead of being admitted to hospital, according to a draft NHS report
full article

On the ropes over Hospital reform
December 7th 2006
The great persuader, Tony Blair, entered the debate about the planned shake-up of hospitals.
He told sceptics it was about improving care not cutting services. But why does the public not believe him?
full article

Blair says shake-up of health service crucial to its survivial
December 6th 2006
The future of a tax-funded NHS is at risk if doctors and politicians lack the courage to act quickly to close hospital departments that no longer provide the best patient care, Tony Blair warned yesterday.
full article

The case for reorganisation
December 6th 2006
The medical case for reorganising hospitals was made yesterday in two reports from government "tsars" responsible for setting national standards for treating heart disease and organising emergency care.
full article

Closures are not about saving money, but saving lives
December 6th 2006
The closure of accident and emergency services at some hospitals is in the interests of patients, the Government said yesterday.
Presenting them as part of a plan to create “super-A&Es” to deal with heart attacks, strokes, and aortic aneurysms, Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, sought to halt a tide of opposition to the closures.
full article

Analysis : the A&E debate
December 5th 2006
Nigel Hawkes, The Times's Health Editor, analyses the proposals in reports by two leading clinicians published today that call for reform of emergency services and the creation of super A&E departments to treat heart attack and stroke patients.
full article

Hospital closures will save lives
December 5th 2006
Closing hospitals saves lives, the Government will claim today. Campaigns to keep local accident and emergency departments and small specialist units open may cost more than 1,000 unnecessary deaths a year, according to a report.
full article

All trained up and nowhere to go
December 5th 2006
For many graduates, the task of finding a job is often an arduous battle against managing debt and escaping the cycle of temping jobs. Rarely do you find a degree that gives its graduates a passport to regular degree-level employment. Except, that is, for the NHS, which has been training its own new recruits for years.
full article

Leaked paper reveals Labour fears on NHS
December 5th 2006
Patricia Hewitt and other ministers have privately conceded that the government is in real difficulty over its efforts to sell controversial health reforms, a minute of a private briefing reveals.
full article

Hospital Closures will save lives, says Blair
December 5th 2006
Tony Blair attempted to head off growing protests over the closure of local accident and emergency departments yesterday, saying the changes would save more lives.
full article

A&E reforms : main points
December 5th 2006
Reforms of A&E services with the creation of new 'super A&E' departments have been put forward by two leading clinicians in reports published today.
full article

Turbulent times for emergency care
December 1st 2006
The Conservatives have demanded a fresh start in the process of reforming emergency services in England .
full article

NHS may close A&E units as deficits bite
December 1st 2006
A total of 29 accident and emergency units are facing closure as NHS trusts struggle to cope with record deficits, new figures have revealed
full article

Troubleshooter is given job of quelling hospital revolts
October 26th 2006
The health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has called in a powerful troubleshooter to