Morecambe Bay Hospitals Trust under fire: Health committee takes trust chief to task (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Morecambe Bay Hospitals Trust under fire: Health committee takes trust chief to task

9:50am Thursday 15th December 2011 in Health By Allan Tunningley

CALLED IN: Tony Halsall addresses councillors

BELEAGURED hospital trust boss Tony Halsall was grilled by county councillors after Westmorland Gazette revelations over a catalogue of health failings.

The chief executive of the troubled University of Morecambe Bay Hospital Trust (UMBHT) was told to provide ‘evidence of improvements’ when he appeared before a special session of Cumbria County Council's health scrutiny committee – a meeting prompted by the Gazette’s Hospitals In Crisis reports.

Mr Halsall defended his organisation, which is under fire on a series of issues, including a number of maternity deaths at Furness General Hospital, a failure in the outpatients’ follow-up appointments system and unacceptable waiting times for ambulances at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

Committee chairman Bill Wearing said: “We want reassurance that improvements in services are on track – that we have safe and secure health services in south Cumbria and north Lancashire.”

Lancashire county councillor Niki Penney, who was invited to the meeting, described the patients’ records system at RLI as ‘diabolical’, claiming in some cases they had been ‘left piled up on the floor’.

She also criticised hospital bosses for allowing patients to be left in ambulances outside the accident and emergency department because nurses were too busy to see them.

“This is unacceptable,” she told Mr Halsall. “Something is drastically wrong and you should do something about it.”

Mr Halsall, who also faced Kendal town councillors last week, disputed one claim that patients had been left waiting in ambulances at RLI for up to five hours.

However, he admitted waits of two and a half hours had occurred, adding: “We have had a few bad weeks in terms of patient waiting times. Our ambition is to try to make improvements.”

The trust’s ‘management culture’ was attacked by Cumbria county councillor Dr David Earnshaw, who is part of the GP out of hours team based at Westmorland General Hospital.

He said staff were afraid to speak out about problems out of ‘fear for their positions’ and that he had been told by one senior manager not to talk to staff about their complaints.

He also criticised the decision four years ago to transfer acute services from WGH to RLI.

“The trust was told in 2007-08 that moving services from Westmorland was only going to pile more pressure on Lancaster. This was predicted; it has happened.”

Mr Halsall said there were plans to build an extension to increase the size of RLI’s accident and emergency unit so major and minor injuries could be dealt with faster.

He said all the outstanding follow-up appointments involving urgent cases had now been dealt with and the remaining backlog of patients would be cleared by March 31.

He also agreed to provide information to prove to the committee that it was making improvements in areas where it had been criticised.

After the meeting, Mr Halsall said: “I got a good hearing. I welcome the opportunity to talk to the committee, to be perfectly honest."

The committee also sought assurances from Dr Neil Goodwin, boss of North Cumbria Universities Hospital Trust, that a strategy for tackling its large financial deficit would not impact directly on patient care.

l BURNESIDE Parish Council passed a vote of no confidence in the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust board last Wednesday.