Spalding: NHS in crisis

The Spalding Target this week launches a major attack on health secretary Patricia Hewitt over NHS cuts being experience in the East Lincolnshire area.

The local East Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust is being accused of cutting services to fight a £13.5 million debt.

The Target lists services that are under threat as family planning clinics, teenage advice centres, rationing of drugs like breast cancer drug Herceptin, cutbacks to district nurse visits and a "host of measures that will hit every section of our community."

The newspaper is accusing local NHS trusts of trying to "railroad" through the cuts, claiming not to have received "a single word by way of press release or notice" about the consultation document or two public 'drop in' events in Spalding.

Under a headline "Putting £££s before lives?' on page 4, the Target reveals that a cancer sufferer - Jan Steward from Holbeach - has accused health officials of "putting a death sentence on people's heads" through rationing of breast cancer drug Herceptin in order to cut costs. The plan could impact on thousands of women across Lincolnshire.

The article also reveals that the trust aims to slash £900,000 from its community nursing services budget alone. One retired district nurse claims that the service is already "less than perfect", following her experience of a lack of home support after having a knee operation.

The trust also plans to limit the availability of hip and knee replacement surgery to only people with a Body Mass Index below a certain level. However, as another retired nurse points out, people can become overweight through being inactive, rather than for diet reasons - and a good reason for inactivity is if you have a hip or knee problem.

On page 7, the Target gives the full list of cuts, aimed at saving just £3.1m of the trust's £13.5m debt:

- £900,000 from community nursing;
- £900,000 from "low priority procedures list", for example restricting Herceptin and barring certain people from having operations;
- £400,000 from therapy services;
- £340,000 from speech and language services;
- £270,000 from closure of contraceptive clinics;
- £90,000 from minor surgery;
- £60,000 from podiatry (foot) services;
- £20,000 from cutting the opening hours of Gainsborough hospital minor injuries unit;
- £120,000 from flouridation of water supplies budget.

The bottom line is that the E. Lincs NHS Trust wouldn't have to make these cuts or quibble about who qualifies for surgery if they were given the resources necessary to meet local NHS needs.

If the government can't do that, then it certainly shouldn't be increasing payments to a body like the EU by an unjustified 63%, handing an organisation that hasn't had its accounts approved by auditors for twelve years running an extra £2.5bn every year.