Dorset County Hospital Recovery Plan – demand for those responsible to be held to account
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate, outside County Hospital
Dr Sue Farrant, Parliamentary Candidate for West Dorset Liberal Democrats has responded to the DCH Recovery Plan which was released this morning.
“I am very pleased to see that the Plan’s focus is on maintaining good quality services which represent good value for money and and are easily accessible to local people. I believe it is absolutely right to look first at the Hospital’s management and administration and to concentrate on increasing productivity and efficiency. None the less I would be surprised if there were no impact on patients at all. I am particularly concerned about the future of the Breast Cancer Unit and I have twice asked DCH about cleaning standards at the hospital but without getting the promised response. We will all await the details of how the Plan is to be implemented with some anxiety.
“However, whilst we need to look forward, the local community also deserves to know how we got here in the first place. The most astonishing thing for me is the statement ‘ The hospital has got into these financial problems because since 2006 it has recruited over 300 new staff and invested heavily in services in the hope [my italics] that it would attract more patients. But these extra patients never came and so we are left with rising costs but without the income to cover them.’ (para 8 of the news release).
“Anyone who has ever run a business or managed a budget of any kind will greet this with incredulity. Since when did anyone with any sense take on increased overheads, especially extra staff, in the hope of an increased income? Where was the business plan, where was the risk analysis?
“I have now had a reply to the letter I wrote to Monitor, the Regulator, asking why they were not keeping a closer eye on DCH in its first year of operation as a Foundation Trust. The Chairman tells me, “The current problems were the responsibility of the previous management who have now largely been replaced.” Yes, they were but they were also the responsibility of the body set up at public expense supposedly to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen. That’s Monitor.
“People have failed in their responsibilities to the public and have caused misery to the staff being made redundant, anxiety to patients and future patients and considerable further expense to get their mess cleaned up.
“They were public servants, paid with public money and should be held to account by the public. They should not be allowed to get away scot-free and we must make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again.”
