The Misguided Closure of an Outstanding
Community Service
The board of Marie Curie Cancer Care have announced
plans to close down their hospice in Harestone Drive,
Caterham, stop the day care service and disband the
specialist community teams by the end of March 2009.
Surrey Primary Care Trust (PCT) and St Catherine's Hospice are trying to
arrange replacement services for East Surrey but the
future of the Harestone services in Croydon remains
uncertain.Latest
28/01/2009
In a joint statement Surrey Primary Care Trust, St Catherine’s Hospice and the ESyDoc group
of GPs have announced an agreement in principle
that:
"will secure the future of specialist end of life
care services for people in East Surrey".
Read the full Press Release.
Reaction has been positive and it appears that, in East
Surrey at least, most of the current services will be
retained in some form. Detailed discussions will
begin soon to decide the exact nature of these new
services, where they will operate and how many of the existing staff can be
transferred.
Uncertainty will remain until these discussions have
concluded, and there has been no word so far about
the future of the services in Coulsdon, Purley and
South Croydon, which are covered by Croydon PCT.
It has not yet been made clear whether all palliative
care services will be retained or just those associated
with end-of-life care.
17/01/2009
A Demonstration in support of the hospice was held
outside the Harestone building on Saturday 17th January.
Over 300 people* came to show their support and heard
a forthright speech from Peter Ainsworth, our local
MP, praising the work of the Harestone team and
condemning the decision, timing and methods of the Marie Curie
board. Speaking without notes Mr Ainsworth said:
"I have the utmost respect for Dr Jane Wand and for her
wonderful staff. I came here recently and met with
some of the doctors, the carers, the bereavement
counsellors, the professional staff,
and I was genuinely moved by the compassion, the
professionalism - the love - that lies behind the work
that these people have done. I bitterly regret the
decision by the Marie Curie charity to terminate it." An
MP for sixteen years, he had this to say about Marie Curie's news
management techniques:
"In my job I get to know spin when I see it, and I saw it in that initial
press release: 'charity bids to extend nursing care in Surrey'. What they meant was that they're closing down one of the best services in
the whole country.
"And I saw it even yesterday when the charity announced that they are
putting half a million pounds into a transitional fund.
Thank you, Marie Curie, for doing it, but it isn't
nearly enough and you've thrown a massive problem at the
local NHS, and of course the Primary Care Trust which is
in deficit and strapped for cash." A full report
of the event, including a video, can be found on the
Get Surrey news site.
If you can't see the video there it may be because the Flash player
is missing from your computer. It can be
downloaded from here:
Adobe Flash Player. See
also the
BBC News story.
*as counted by two independent attendees. Clarification of the
Week:
In a recent statement Susan Munroe, Director of Nursing and Patient Services, said:
In 2008/09, it is expected that we will provide services at Caterham Hospice to
150 patients.
This is not the best use of Marie Curie resources and covers only a small part of Surrey.
This could easily be misunderstood to mean that only 150
patients will be under the care of the Harestone teams.
In fact Harestone treats around 600 patients
annually and in the last calendar year
received over 450 new referrals. Susan refers to
'services at Caterham Hospice', and 150 is about right
for the number for patients using the day care service
at the hospice. But that completely disregards
the hundreds of other patients treated by specialist hospice staff
and nurses in the community. And when the hospice goes,
all the staff and volunteers will go too, and many more
patients than just the 150 attending day care will be affected.
The nurses and specialists based at the hospice care for
patients in their homes as far north as Purley, east to
the Kent border, south to Dormansland, and west to
Reigate. Susan Munroe should try driving round
that area as the hospice staff do, and see whether she
still thinks it is a 'small part of Surrey'.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the closure
itself, for a Marie Curie director to undervalue the
work of the Harestone hospice like this is shameful.
The board's attitude towards Dr Wand and all
the staff and volunteers is at best indifference and at
worst contempt. These exceptional people have done so much
for so many of us over the years but have still not
received
so much as a 'thank you' from Marie Curie.
They deserve better than this.
16/01/2009
Press Release
Marie Curie Cancer Care has announced today that it has
offered Surrey PCT £500,000 funding for 2009/10 to ease
the transfer of services from its hospice at Caterham if,
at the end of the current consultation process, the decision
is taken to close the hospice.
Chief Executive Thomas Hughes-Hallett said
"We have had outstanding support for the hospice for many
years and this is the most difficult issue I have ever had
to face as Chief Executive. Change is difficult and we regret
the distress this move has caused patients, the community,
volunteers and staff". Acknowledging a bad
decision is obviously even more difficult.
Read the full press release.
15/01/2009
More letters from people opposed to the closure have been
published in the
Caterham County Border News as part of
its 'Halt The Hospice Closure' campaign.
Please send your letters to
kevinwilliamblack@gmail.com
for possible publication. Reasons For The Closure
Initially the closure was presented as a good news
story. The board argued that by closing the hospice and
dismissing the specialist teams they could give more people
the choice to die in their own homes rather than in
hospital. As a balance sheet exercise it can't be
faulted, but as a care policy it is simplistic and
misguided. The most vulnerable and needy people in
East Surrey will no
longer have the option of intensive palliative care in
their own homes or anywhere else, and those who cannot
be looked after at home could end up in
hospital. Some choice.There is a balance to be
struck between quality and quantity of care, and in this
case the Marie Curie board have got the balance wrong.
Their reasoning could be applied to services across the country:
is any
Marie Curie hospice safe now? To back up their
argument the board have given many reasons, like
highlighting their strategic plan commitment to double
the number of people cared for at home at the end of
life. But they ignore the commitment
in the same plan to "increase the number of
patients using our hospices by 50 per cent". For many
more examples like this see Reasons Or Excuses?
What You Can Do
Please write to the relevant people so they know how
you feel. Surrey PCT is responsible for commissioning end-of-life
care for patients. Although they are already working to
ensure that specialist care will still be available, the
case for some kind of rescue will be made stronger if there
is a big display of public support.
Marie Curie no
longer intend to provide this service, but it would still
be useful to let them know the strength of feeling locally
before they close down any other hospices.
See Who To Write ToA Public
Relations and Management Fiasco
The closure has been badly handled from the start:
No Warning
The board knew what they were planning but new hospice staff
were still being taken on. No Consultation
No-one asked the clinical staff or local GPs or patients
or the PCT whether they thought it was a good idea.
No-one from Head Office visited to find out what was actually
being achieved at Harestone itself and out in the local
homes, nursing homes and GP surgeries that it serves.
No Replacement
The PCT were given just four months to identify the many
community services provided by Harestone, and come up with
a plan and the funds to replace them. No Regrets
One of the directors was asked why she had not expressed
regret at the closure. She replied that there was
no point because no one would believe her.
With an attitude like that is it any wonder that people
think she doesn't care.
STOP PRESS: 16/01/2009 Chief Executive: "we
regret the distress this move has caused".
The distress was entirely predictable, and support should
have been in place to help people through it, particularly
the staff, instead of dropping this bombshell and leaving
them to it.
Six weeks later someone has finally seen the light. Or seen
the headlines.
Read the press release
No Thanks
The Marie Curie board have still shown no appreciation or
recognition of the importance and extent of the work done
by the teams at Caterham. Harestone is much more than
just a hospice but Marie Curie haven't even had the courtesy
to thank the people who worked so hard to achieve that.
This is not the style of management you would expect from
a supposedly caring charity. No Openness
From their first press release,
which claimed they would expand nursing care in Surrey,
to their refusal to answer
questions from Peter Ainsworth, the board of
Marie Curie have been determined not to acknowledge the
full impact of their 'restructuring' or explain the real
reasons behind it. |
