West Herts Hospitals Trust scores a double ‘WEAK’ in the Healthcare Commission’s Annual Health Check – for the second year running.
Each year, the Healthcare Commission conducts a national ‘Health Check’ where it considers a range of targets for ‘Quality of services’ and ‘Use of resources’. It then
awards each NHS Trust a grade of either ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Fair’ or ‘Weak’. I was astounded to read that for the second year running our local NHS Trust scored ‘weak’ for ‘Quality of services’ and ‘weak’ for ‘Use of resources’. It couldn’t be any worse. The residents of West Hertfordshire deserve better than that.
Our local hospital services are a mess. Not just the loss of frontline services at Hemel, but overcrowding at Watford. Every week I get letters from residents telling stories of the problems they have faced – nowhere to park at Watford, congestion on the Hempstead Road causing missed appointments – I could go on…
I really feel for our dedicated hospital staff who have worked through non-stop change and reorganisation for as long as many can remember. It really is time that this all stopped.
After careful thought, I felt I had to call for the whole NHS Trust board to resign. There is no excuse for making zero improvement. We entrust these people to look after our healthcare – and they are paid a lot of money to do so - the least they can do is make a reasonable job of it!
If they can’t even run the existing set up satisfactorily are they really the right people to manage a complicated “reconfiguration” of our hospital services?
Buncefield
In Parliament, I have called on the Secretary of State for Transport to explain to MPs why a report on the Buncefield explosion has still not been made public.
The oil companies are putting a lot of pressure on the local council to allow the terminal to reopen before we know the inquiry’s conclusions and I fear they are putting profits before the safety and wellbeing of local residents. They cannot be allowed to get away with re-opening the site before compensation has been fully settled and before the results of the HSE Inquiry are known.
We don’t even know yet whether prosecutions are going to be brought or what additional safety measures would need to be in place.
It amazes me that the oil companies have the gall to pressurize the local Council in this way – less than two years after the explosion caused so much devastation and turmoil for local people.
| 
