Still time to repair the damage

Where’s the Webinar? To add insult to the injury of too little patient engagement too late, the webinar organised for Wednesday 13th September by NHS England for patients unable to attend the two public meetings at St Peter's Hospital on 9th August and 9 September, was cancelled at the last minute. We were told this was due to IT problems - something service users trying to access CNWL's appointments system in Surrey will be only too familiar with! We were promised a new date "by close of play" that Wednesday. Well, we don't know when this play is due to end but after a week we still don't have a new date. Assuming the webinar is to be rearranged, and not simply abandoned, we will publicise the new date and time as soon as we have it. Accountability But time is running short for it to have any impact on the decision-makers – Councillors and commissioning officers – who think it is ok to close down a Unit that has been providing a full range of sexual health and HIV services in a discreet hospital setting for 25 years, attracting nothing but the highest praise from its patients, without anything available locally to replace it. We are bound to ask where is the accountability for this sorry state of affairs? Who is to be held responsible when HIV patients fall ill because they no longer have the service they have trusted to keep them well for years? Who is to be held responsible for cancers that go undetected because the expert investigative skills of the Blanche Heriot Unit have been destroyed? Who is to be held responsible for the increase in unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections when service users in North West Surrey can no longer readily access contraceptive or sexual health screening services? Ineptitude Who is to be held responsible NOW for the distress and anxiety that has been caused to thousands of BHU patients, and the fantastic BHU staff, by the ineptitude of the commissioning process. Inept – because it failed to scope the BHU service adequately; inept - because it failed to inform those clinicians and others who participated, in good faith, in the tender preparation stage that the budget was to be cut by one third and that the Blanche Heriot Unit and the Frimley Park GUM Clinic would not feature in the service model; inept - because it did not revisit the tender when only one bid, from a central London NHS Trust that was struggling financially, was received; inept - because of the complete lack of any meaningful consultation or engagement with BHU patients once it was known that the future of the BHU was at risk; inept - because with less than two weeks to go before BHU is due to close not one BHU patient knows how or where he or she will be cared for in the future. Time to listen – it’s not too late Surely public servants and elected representatives should have learnt by now that they must listen to the people they serve, particularly those directly affected by proposed changes to services. It will be a tragedy if this lesson is only learnt due to patients and service users suffering catastrophic outcomes because they can no longer access the services they require. It is not too late for David Hodge, Leader of Surrey Council and Councillor Helyn Clack, Cabinet Lead for Health, to do the right thing and put on hold the transfer of the BHU service to CNWL and insist that the job is done properly - patients' lives may depend on it. PLEASE COMPLETE the NHS England Blanche Heriot Unit survey https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/009611c3/consultation/intro/ CLOSES FRIDAY Professionals and patients can email https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/009611c3/consultation/confirm_submit