Forum topic: Forum calls on public to resist a Suffer in Silence future for the NHS in Enfield

NHS cuts mean more pain for patients

The Enfield NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has launched a controversial plan which will mean that patients will no longer be treated for conditions ranging from hearing loss to gallstones, knee replacement surgery to hernias, until we are in severe pain or the deafness affects our independence and social life. At its Governing Board meeting on Wednesday March 15 2017 the CCG refused to either extend the minimal 30-day consultation period on its proposals, or withdraw them completely.

Because this so-called consultation ends on March 31, the Enfield Over 50s Forum, the largest voluntary organisation in the borough with more than 6,000 subscribing members, is calling on everyone who values the NHS to make their voices heard in opposing changes misleadingly called Adherence to Evidence Based Medicine - misleading because the proposals - which have been deliberately under-publicised to Enfield’s public - contain no supporting medical evidence. We refuse to endorse a “suffer in silence” future and urge everyone to write to Dr Jahan Mahmoodi, Medical Director, Enfield CCG, Holbrook House, Cockfosters Road, Enfield, EN4 ODR asking for the withdrawal of the Evidence Based Medicines scheme. The CCG’s intention is clearly to limit the role of our GPs in exercising their clinical judgement. They are seeking to impose new thresholds for a number of medical conditions, while concealing the real driving force for these changes is the need (as the CCG itself says) for “increased efficiency savings.”

The Over 50s Forum has constantly drawn attention to the years of under-funding health services in Enfield have suffered, leading to the CCG being placed under special measures by NHS England to balance the books. Our CCG, serving a population now estimated at 333,709, receives £396.8 million this year while other CCGs in North Central London with whom we are grouped. such as Islington with 242,341 residents, receives £335.7 million and Camden population 267,253 gets £355.3 million.

Recent research shows that the UK’s health spending is 9.1% of national income while Germany spends 11.3%, France 11.6% and the USA 17.1%. Our NHS is under-funded and we should not help to cover this up under the cloak of unsubstantiated “evidence based medicine”. The CCG is attempting to introduce a form of rationing to hide the nationwide financial plight of the NHS

We give just one example to expose how hollow and shortsighted are the CCG proposals. The Department of Health says that 71% of the over 70s have a hearing loss, yet the CCG want to deprive people with mild hearing loss from getting hearing aids from the NHS or a qualified private supplier. Their only “evidence “ is to claim that CCGs at Stoke on Trent and South Norfolk have adopted the proposed Enfield criteria. This is untrue.

The Department of Health in its Action Plan on Hearing Loss says that people with mild hearing loss have nearly twice the risk of developing dementia, compared to people with normal hearing. The DoH advocates early awareness, diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss to reduce the onset of isolation, loneliness and depression - treatments that would cost the NHS a lot more than a pair of hearing aids.

While we recognise the financial challenges facing the NHS, we cannot accept that the solution lies in refusing treatment for an arbitrary list of conditions until patients are in severe pain or lose their quality of life - betraying the foundation principles of the NHS.

We urge you to sign our petition www.change.org/p/enfield-borough-over-50s-forum-fairer-fundingfor-enfield .

Monty Meth MBE President
Christine Whetstone Chair
Tony Watts Secretary
Vivien Giladi Health Lead

Enfield Borough Over 50s Forum