Information about plans currently being drawn up to make radical changes to NHS services in Enfield and four other north London boroughs will be made public at a meeting on 26th September.
Details of the meeting at the Dugdale Centre have appeared on the Healthwatch Enfield website (see the box at the bottom of this article).
The plan in question is one of the "Sustainability and Transformation Plans" (STPs) that are currently in development, each covering health and social care in one of 44 areas into which England has been divided (so-called "footprints"). The North Central London footprint comprises Camden, Enfield, Barnet, Haringey and Islington.
The STPs are being drawn up in very short order at the behest of NHS England with the stated aim of introducing efficiencies that will make it possible to provide NHS services that are supposedly better than at present but at the same time allow the government to spend some £22 billion a year less than the amount that the head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, has stated would be needed to provide the services using current operating methods.
However, various pro-NHS campaigning organisations fear that the STPs will in practice involve sharp cut-backs in services while at the same time dividing NHS services up into geographical packages that would be ideal for contracting out to private health providers.
It is known that the North Central London STP has to reduce annual costs by some £117 million. Some details have already emerged about the STP plans for neighbouring North West London, which seem to indicate a reduction in hospital beds and downgrading of some hospitals. (See this earlier article for links to information so far gleaned about STPs in various parts of the country.)
Your STP is coming – don’t let it go unnoticed!
On Friday, 26th August 2016 the BBC hit the headlines with its feature on STPs. Great, if you know what it is. What if you don't? A quick Google search unfortunately does not provide a definite answer. It could be a Scalar Triple Product, a Spanning Tree Protocol or a Sewage Treatment Plant. Sowhat do STPs have to do with health and social care?
STP is a Sustainability and Transformation Plan – a document that will affect every one of us! But let's start from the beginning.
In October 2014 NHS England published the 'NHS Five Year Forward View', which was further supplemented by the 'Five Year Forward View for Mental Health' and the 'General Practice Forward View'. In total almost 200 pages on what the future of our National Health Service will look like. Still, how do you put theory into practice? Cue - Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs).
Across Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Camden and Islington, commissioners, providers and local authority representatives have been working together to shape our STP for North Central London. For a period, they have been operating in private meetings – discussing clinical approaches and their effectiveness, crunching numbers and generating volumes of work to meet the pace set by NHS England. However, our draft STP will not be private for much longer. Within a few weeks, you will not only be able to review the content of the plan, but you also will have an opportunity to meet the local decision-makers behind its development.
The need for public involvement and engagement with health and social care service transformation has never been greater than this. At Healthwatch Enfield, and in partnership with our counterparts in Barnet, Haringey, Camden and Islington, we constantly remind the STP leaders about their obligation to seek out and embed public views and opinions in all work-streams underpinning the development of new health and social care models. However, we cannot do this without your support! STPs are here to stay and we all need to take responsibility for shaping how they end up delivering our services.
Patricia Mecinska, Chief Executive of Healthwatch Enfield and North Central London Healthwatch nominated representative for the STP Transformation Board, said: "We are aware of the levels of anxiety surrounding the Sustainability and Transformation Plans; however I would urge the residents of Enfield to engage with the process of shaping the plan. Enough local voices can create a unique opportunity for a radical rethink of services to better meet individuals' needs, a true integration of health and social care, and put us, the people of Enfield, at the heart of future direction. In particular, we are anxious to ensure that the interests of Enfield residents are met, along with those from the other Boroughs.
"Healthwatch Enfield will continue to provide a local evidence base to STP leaders so your contribution to shaping the Sustainability and Transformation Plan for Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Camden and Islington can be as simple as getting in touch with us. You do not even have to leave the comfort of your house to potentially make a difference to over 300,000 residents in Enfield. Email us, phone us, tweet us using #NCLSTP or simply write to us.
"Help shape your local services, otherwise the decisions will be made without you. Make health and social care services work for you and your community. Your voice matters!"
Source: www.healthwatchenfield.co.uk/news/your-stp-coming-–-don’t-let-it-go-unnoticed