Council Alerts Ministers To Crisis Over Care Service Cuts

Government ministers are considering the crisis at Brent tPCT after being presented with a dossier by Brent Council, which highlights the financial pressures placed on the authority and the impact on residents of huge cuts to local health services.

Health Minister Lord Hunt and Local Government Minister Phil Woolas have been given the dossier at a meeting with Brent Council leader Councillor Paul Lorber, Chief Executive Gareth Daniel, Director of Housing and Community Care Martin Cheeseman and Director of Children and Families John Christie.

The delegation warned ministers that Brent tPCT’s cuts of about £42 million include a ‘cost shunt’ of around £6m to the authority for long-stay hospital and Continuing Care cases. Brent tPCT is also planning to transfer costs to 18 other local authorities.

They also made five proposals to ministers for Government action to protect front-line health services in Brent, which is the most ethnically diverse borough in the country with areas of acute poverty, and high health needs.

The dossier urged ministers to:

• acknowledge the funding crisis facing health and social care services and properly funds social care for councils.
• address the growing funding pressures in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review
• redirect some of the national NHS surplus of £500m to alleviate the cuts made by Brent tPCT
• agree a longer timetable for the tPCT to tackle its deficit use of agreed national guidelines for the distribution of health and social care costs between the NHS and local councils
• help Brent tPCT to honour its historical legal and moral obligations to fund all ex-long stay hospital patients

Brent Council leader Councillor Paul Lorber wanted swift action: “We put a very strong argument to ministers that the tPCT is resolving its financial woes by damaging health services for residents and creating major financial problems for its local government partner.”

“The solution to the problems needs to be found within the NHS and not outside. The tPCT has itself acknowledged that the crisis has resulted from its own failure of governance. Brent Council has established stable finances and sound controls, but we are not a wealthy authority which can call on massive financial reserves.”

“The ‘cost shunt’ to the authority threatens its financial stability. Brent Council is continuing to work day-to-day with our partners at the tPCT and to deliver jointly commissioned services, and it is committed to partnership working. But the way in which these cuts have been carried out contradicts the national policy agenda around preventative services and undermines co-operative, partnership working.”

The dossier warned that cuts by the tPCT so far have included:

• withdrawal of funding for speech and language therapy to 160 children
• major reductions in physiotherapy, school nursing and health visiting
• extended waiting lists and weekend closures at a walk-in centre
• reduced funding for sexual health and family planning services
• bed closures at Willesden Centre for Health and Social Care

Brent Council requested a meeting with the Department of Health after writing to Secretary of State for Health Patricia Hewitt in November last year. Brent tPCT announced its Turnaround Plan that month, stating it needed to make cuts of around £42m by 2007-8 to achieve financial balance.

A scrutiny task group set up by the Health Select Committee of Brent Council warned of the implications for front-line services this year after publishing a report which included testimonies from voluntary sector groups in Brent affected by the cuts. An online poll run by Brent Council last year found 77 per cent of residents in the borough were very concerned about the cuts.