Jonanthan Walker, writing in the Birmingham Post (Tuesday April 1st 2003), reveals that the £7,500,000 loan received from WM(S)SHA* by the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (Kidderminster, Redditch & Worcester) "must be re-paid by the end of this month" !

Commons written reply by Health Minister David Lammy to a question by Peter Luff MP
... repayment "is planned by the end of April 2003"

In order to find the money - which was provided as emergency funding to help the cash-strapped Trust balance it's books - savings will have to be found from a reduction in the number of temporary nurses provided by private agencies.

Last month staff received letters from hospital managers urging them to ignore rumours that their salaries would not be paid !

The Trust spokeswoman contradicted the Health Minister by claiming that_  "The period of repayment has not been fixed but it does not have to be repaid within 12 months"

She went on to confirm that economies needed to repay the loan would begin immediately.

All this follows a damning report from the District auditors (Jan 2003) and a Report by the Commission for Health Improvement (the NHS's 'official'  Inspectors  (March 2003) - which raised concerns about "missing patient records, lengthy waiting times & cancelled operations".

"I have been in discussion with the Chief Executives of the Wyre Forest Primary Care Trust and the Acute Hospitals Trust and have stressed that to attempt to make savings by cuts in clinical services is the least effective way of attempting to improve health services in the County.  
I hope they will take this on board and as the Annual Audit Letter told us that our hospitals trust is one of the most expensive in the country they will be able to find other ways of reducing costs to bring us into line with the rest of the country".

R.T.

Further, in his article (Birmingham Post Thursday 03 April 2003) entitled "Flagship hospitals in poor health", Mr. Walker writes about the results of the UNISON survey of hospitals built under the Private Finance Initiative scheme.

Interviews with staff at Worcester and Hereford hospitals reveal -

• complaints about "cheap and nasty buildings" - with space wasted on grand foyer entrances yet with offices crammed into windowless cubicles

• a desperate shortage of beds - with elderly patients highlighted for immediate discharge on Friday afternoons (when no support agencies can be contacted)

• cuts in the number of beds (in Hereford by up to 40 %)

• patients being prematurely discharged - and then having to be  re-admitted

• exceptionally heavy fire-doors - each costing some £1,000 - with the potential to injure pedestrians

• handles and fixings already dropping out of plasterboard walls

• lower standards of cleanliness and hygiene - with a Worcs. nursing assistant quoted as saying .... "cleanliness here is a joke"

• Wards only being truly clean .... "if there is an (official) visit"

• low morale leading to difficulties in recruitment

The Union wants the Government to carry out an independent review into P.F.I. to establish if it is delivering and whether it represents value for the tax-payers' money.

* West Midlands (South) Strategic Health Authority

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