Leaked extracts

South West London Strategic Plan - the critical facts

  • Leaked extracts from NHS report confirm local MPs’ claims about Kingston Hospital
  • If anything, the options under consideration are worse!
  • 1 in 3 options have Kingston Hospital losing not just A&E and Maternity, but also paediatric inpatients
  • 16 of the total 18 options have Kingston losing a significant service
  • The date of the document confirms what MPs claimed about the publication dates they had previously been notified of by 4 NHS Chief Executives
  • It’s clear the NHS were going to publish, and then decided to keep these plans secret

The pages ED/SK have

Click on a page to see a full size image.

Strategic Plan coverStrategic Plan cover Strategic Plan page 91Strategic Plan page 91 Strategic Plan page 92Strategic Plan page 92 Strategic Plan page 93Strategic Plan page 93
  • ED and SK have been sent anonymously various pages of a document by Healthcare for South West London, entitled “South West London Strategic Plan”
  • This is one of the documents ED & SK had submitted Freedom of Information requests for.
  • The cover page is marked “Private and Confidential” and “Final Draft December 18th 2009”.
  • Note: the 18th December date backs up the account ED & SK have given from the start, namely that they were told before Christmas that a document would be published on 18th December – but then told on 16th December that it had been pulled. The NHS has said since the document wasn’t ready for publication and had been delayed. That is clearly not the full truth.
  • The document is clearly a substantial document – as some of the extracts ED & SK have been sent are numbered pages 91, 92 and 93

What the extracts say

The extracts confirm exactly what Kingston’s two Liberal Democrat MPs have said, but add more detail

Recommendations from the “clinical strategy group” include:

  • “No more than three obstetric units” (i.e., maternity departments)
  • “Two paediatric inpatient units” (there are three now, including one at Kingston
  • Consolidation of all elective surgery activity into one or two elective surgery centres” (from the current three)
  • This section was silent on A&Es – but see below

The clinical strategy group considered “there were two fixed points”, (i.e., aspects of acute hospital care that could not be altered):

  • St.George’s: “it was agreed that it should be the major acute hospital for south west London”
  • The Royal Marsden, as a specialist provider of cancer care
  • Surprisingly, nothing was mentioned about PFI buildings, as being “fixed points”

These “recommendations” and “fixed points” “leads to three potential configuration scenarios”. See the scanned pages above for details, but note the report’s conclusion at this point:

“Only one scenario (scenario B, three “hot” sites) was considered by the clinical strategy group to be likely to deliver the desired clinical quality improvements and financial viability”

Scenario B includes:

  • 3 A&E units – i.e., a loss of one A&E at either Mayday, St Helier or Kingston
  • 3 obstetric units - – i.e., a loss of one maternity at either Mayday, St Helier or Kingston
  • 2 paediatric inpatient units – i.e., a loss of one unit, presumed at Mayday or Kingston
  • 1-2 elective surgery centre sites – i.e., a loss of 1 or 2 existing sites

This confirms entirely and completely the warnings given by Kingston’s two Lib Dem MPs, that Kingston’s A&E and Maternity units are under review and under real threat.

Moreover, the report then talks about “18 options” – exactly what Edward Davey and Susan Kramer said they had been told, from day one of their campaign.

Another extract of the report is entitled:

“With 3 hot sites, there are at least 18 combinations of settings of care across sites”

Of the 18 options:

  • In only 2 of the 18 options, does Kingston retain its current services. It loses some services in 16 out of the 18 options under consideration in this December report
  • In 6 of the 18 options – in other words, in a third of the options – Kingston Hospital loses both it’s A&E and its maternity – as well as its paediatric inpatient unit
  • In 12 of the 18 options, Kingston Hospital loses its paediatric inpatient unit
  • In 8 of the 18 options, Kingston Hospital loses its elective surgery centre

The page setting out the 18 options concludes:

“A financial analysis of the various options demonstrates that, whilst some of the options can be judged as preferable from a financial perspective, there is not enough difference to distinguish a single preferred configuration.”

Conclusions

  1. The threat to Kingston Hospital is a real one
  2. The threat to Kingston Hospital’s A&E and Maternity units is a real one: 1 in 3 !!
  3. Other services at Kingston Hospital are also being considered for closure, including paediatric inpatients and elective surgery: Kingston loses something significant in 16 out of the 18 options under consideration.
  4. Kingston’s MPs were clearly briefed at a time when the NHS thought it was going to publish this material
  5. For some reason, after briefing the MPs and telling them this would be published, giving two specific dates, the NHS decided or were told to keep this secret until after the election
  6. Kingston’s Liberal Democrat MPs could have joined in the conspiracy of silence, and not told the public what they had been told – as Kingston’s two Conservative candidates appear to be suggesting they would have done, if they had been the MPs
  7. Or the MPs could have blown the whistle, and informed the public.
  8. Now the claims of Kingston’s Lib Dem MPs are beyond doubt, the campaign to save Kingston Hospital’s services can continue