Surfing the Waive!!

I see from the Environmental Services Committee meeting next week that the parking waive criteria since October 2005 has been a £75,000 loss of income to Council Tax payers in general, though a saving to first-time parking offenders.

However I assume that there will be all-party consensus on the Council to now maintain this policy. Indeed Colin Hall gave a public commitment for the lifetime of this Council.

Now she is not on Strategy Committee, I also assume Eleanor Pinfold will leave this issue to her colleagues to make any comments or representations on, rather than her previous approach on this issue. Ask Tony Shields for what happened in October 2005 or trawl the letters page of the Guardian through November for the saga.

Critical Care Hospital bites the dust. Prepare for a "Major Acute Hospital" Foundation instead!!

On July 19th I posted an article "The Tesco Foundation Hospital at St Helier??" where I speculated that:

"1. By October, Epsom may be downgraded for A&E and Maternity, with St Helier providing these functions. More Sutton residents will have to go to Epsom for elective procedures.

"2. Over the next 5-10 years more complex cases will migrate to St Georges. I suspect the Sutton Hospital CCH would have still suffered the same problem, even if put next to the Marsden.

"3. Rebuilding on St Helier will probably be phased operation. It may be partly financed if a major retailer (eg Tesco, Sainsbury's) is asked to develop retail/restaurant facilities on the site and replacing current contractors and services provided by the League of Friends. This sort of partnership may be tied in with the Epsom and St Helier Trust securing Foundation status in due course. A mixed Housing development may also be part of this proposal, with affordable key worker housing "downstairs" and some lovely flats with superb views "upstairs"."

As you can see above I was not expecting a significant movement forward from the Secretary of State, so her decision this week not to proceed at present comes as no great surprise. The decision is clearly a great disappointment, but it has to be said that this whole process has been ruined anyway by the local NHS establishments obsession with the Sutton site which dates back to at least 1992.

It should also be remembered that the proposed development we are all talking about was unlikely to be ready prior to the London Olympics anyway!!:-)

In other words the Secretary of State has in effect simply endorsed the new local status quo over the distribution of acute services, which has emerged since the recent Safety and Sustainability Review of Epsom and St Helier and which has been remarkably endorsed by all three Health Scrutiny Committees (some without a meeting on the subject)!!

We should:

1. Remenber that St Helier was always intended as the main acute hospital for this area from 2006-2012 even under the discredited BHCH proposals. The local NHS establishment only wrongly proposed replacing it with Sutton after that date.

2. Now look at the methodology used to identify acute hospital requirements in the neighbouring Surrey and Sussex Hospital Review. Go to
http://www.surreysussexfitforthefuture.nhs.uk/
for details. This identifies 4 types of Hospital for the future:

a) Critical Care Hospital
b) Major Acute Hospital
c) Local General Hospital
d) Local Care Centre

Judging by current trends I would now see our 5 local "Critical Care Hospitals" as being St Georges at Tooting, Mayday at Croydon, Kingston, St Peter's at Chertsey and East Surrey at Redhill.

I suspect St Helier now looks much more likely to evolve into a "Major Acute Hospital" linked to St Georges, whilst Epsom is likely to develop into a Local General Hospital with its campus also hosting other health providers. The interesting question for Health Scrutiny Committees, is if St Helier doesn't become a Critical Care Hospital and evolves into a Major Acute Hospital with some critical care provided at St Georges, will many people notice?

Hopefully local PCT's will develop or commission local care centres (see my article below on "Local Care Networks") in the coming years in a much more bottom up approach than the top down approach (wait until we have sorted out the CCH etc) proposed in BHCH. This is a key area for local Council's to work with the local NHS on. For example a combined health and leisure development on the Malden Road baths site.

Having attended the Epsom and St Helier Trust meeting in early August, it seems to me the following action is likely to be the priority of the Acute Trust in the coming years:

1. The development of the Epsom Health Campus site, with a range of health providers on it.

2. The establishment of Epsom and St Helier as Foundation Trust. It is vital that the Sutton and Merton Health Scrutiny Committees ensure they strongly imput into the Foundation Trust document. I will set out a checklist of key issues in due course. The most crucial issue will be do we want a "Critical Care Hospital" or a "Major Acute Hospital" in the borough? This will be an issue for a future article.

There is a danger that once it becomes a Foundation the Trust will try to resurect the Sutton Hospital CCH option again in conjunction with the Royal Marsden (probably as a much samller proposal on part of the Sutton site with some sold off to fund it), though this may not be allowed as the Critical Care part of the NHS is unlikely to become a quasi-market as it more likely to be driven by unexpected illness rather than personal choice of healthcare.

That is why residents in Sutton will need to continue to campaign now for Acute services to continue to be provided on the St Helier site in the period after 2012.

Just the Wrythe not online!!

Well done to Councillor John Keys whose public email address means that Beddington North residents can now email their local Councillors. 17 out of 18 wards in the borough now have at least one Councillor publicly online.

This only leaves Wrythe as the only ward in the borough whose 7,500 electors cannot publicly email a ward Councillor.

Perhaps someone should point this out to the Lib Dem Group Chair (Whip) so they can sort it out!!:-)

Council Forward Plan - September to November

So what's coming up for Councillors to debate after the August break.

Here are some of the future items coming to Strategy Committee between September and November. Many have already have been discussed and need little further comment.

I have annotated the more interesting items. For more details, it should be possible to click on each item to go to the relevant part of the Council website. The numbering follows the Forward Plan itself:

1. Quarterly Performance Monitor 2006/07 - First Quarter

2. Corporate Plan 2007/10
I welcome further debate on this and will make my comments through this website.

3. Local Area Agreement

4. Medium Term Service and Financial Plan
This could be a very important paper. I hope that as well as securing efficiencies it avoids impacting on staff morale (vital for us to stay "Excellent") throughy too much uncertainty.

5. Sutton Disability Trust for Children & Young People - Section 31 Agreement
We seem to be developing piecemeal health and social care integration, which may not be a bad thing as long as we do move forward. I think an overview paper is needed to set out where we hope to be by 2010.

6. Implementing the Modernising of Learning Disability Day Services Strategy and the Provision of a New Youth Service
This will hopefully lead to a new Hallmead and a number of other sites as well as a new Youth Centre on the Century Youth Centre site.

7. Review of Day Services for Older People
I have previiously commented on this issue below and set out a criteria with which changes couyld be judged.

8. Delegations to Officers
I will comment in more detail when this comes to Community Leadership Advisory Group

9. Care Centre Buildings Improvement Plan
This will come to Strategy on 11 September. Presumably it covers the capital receipt from the flogging off of Bawtree and spending money on Oakleigh. Will it cover the flogging off of Ludlow and Franklin to pay for Carshalton War Memorial site as the Council reduces the number of Care Homes from 4 to 1 in the course of 3 years.

10. Investment Options for Highways

11. Roundshaw Large Scale Stock Transfer
I assume the ballot will nhjot have been held by then. I would still argue that Sutton Housing Partnership should be given the chance to offer to manage the properties.

12. Strategy for the Health of Looked After Children

13. Supporting People Programme

14. Review of Parking Services
Let's hope the Parking Waive Criteria is not going to be cynically dumped by the Lib Dems now the elections are over as some officers might be advising them. With Eleanor off Strategy, the Tories are likely to be clearer what their policy on these sort of issues this time.

15. Provision of Personal Computer Equipment and Software to Members
After the political assistants, presumably the laptops follow! Perhaps the item could cover ensuring all wards have at least one Councillor with public email address, instead of the 16 out of 18 wards covered we have at present.

16. Review of Senior Officer Pay

17. Insurance Contract

18. LPSA2

19. Voluntary Sector Compact
Mike Cooper sat on this issue for years before Sean Brennan moved it forward. I assume this is a review of progress.

20. Belsize Gardens Extra Care Sheltered Housing - Care and Support Arrangements

21. Private Sector Renewal - Council Loans

22. Future Procurement of Waste Services
An important issue for the next few years. This has the possibility for Sutton to become the leading authority in South West London as well as develop a "Green Industries corridor" in the Beddington Lane area. There is also some scope to look at partenrship with social enterprise as well. I will comment on the report when it comes out.

23. Policy for the Operation of the Re-use and Recycling Centre
This needs a review. We own the surrounding sites and I think we need to use some of that for expansion purposes for this site instead of just for a capital receipt. This is such a high profile site, it has to work correctly all the time, thus we need more space for flexibility.

24. Growth in ASD Cases
Pareants have greater expectations and schools are more prepared to encourage them to obtain statementing than in the past. This clearly requires greater resources to ensure we do not return to a backlog of statements thaty we had in the past.

25. Revenue Budget 2007/08 - Service Group Allocations

26. Best Value Performance Indicators - Half Year Progress

Health Observer Update

Two items of recent interest:

1. Yesterday a further 8 NHS Foundation Trusts were created, making 48 in total. A further 21 are in the pipeline. Within the next 3-5 years I suspect the Epsom and St Helier Trust will be a Foundation Trust or may be thinking of merging with one, as this structure becomes the broad Arms-length operation of acute and other forms of NHS care. This, far more than BHCH is likely to lead to a future new CCH for the area. Sutton Council, through its actions may influence this through its planning policies. In the coming months the Core Planning policies for the Council will give the public an opportunity to remind the Council that 57% of the public prefer the St Helier site to Sutton. Will Sutton Council listen when it develops its planning policies?

2. William Moyes, the head of Monitor, the Foundation Trust regulatory body, hinted that Foundation status, may soon be given to Community Hospitals or groups of district nurses, chiropdists and other health professionals providing services to primary care Trusts. In Sutton we are not so well advanced down this road, but if you go to the former EEMS PCT area over the border in Surrey you will find groups like EDICS - A group of GP's running services in Epsom. Is this the same as Epsom Day surgery group, who have been contracted to run a treatement centre and outpatients department in Cobham? There is also Central Surrey Healthcare social enterprise providing some community services. Over the coming years we are likely to see similar groups in the Merton and Sutton area, which may then entrench their contractual position by becoming foundations. Will there be any public scrutiny of the PCT service contracts to be let, prior to any decision? This is a potentially big issue for a future health scrutiny committee if it becomes proactive.

Development Control - 9 August

Two early comments on the fortcoming meeting:

1. The Kimpton Road application broadly makes sense. It would be good to see the whole site north and west of Kimpton Park Way to be properly landscaped rather than the likely piecemeal approach we will see over the coming years as this application illustrates. Maybe Councillors in now marginal Stonecot ward will press for this otherwise others will no doubt make an issue of it?

2. Lets hope Salem doesn't come to the Hamptons, but I am concerned that affordable housing is being stuck in a corner of the site. You only have to read page 27 of the 29/7-4/8 Edition of the Economist magazine to see that there is, in the words of the Nat West advert, a "better way" regarding the integration of affordable housing into housing sites. I also hope the way the whole site is managed ensures that the Hamptons does not see affordable housing sites like this as second class citizens in the development and the Hamptons residents association welcomes them with open arms. We will wait and see.