Pilgrim Hospital Not Up To Standard - Report Today

Just how worried should we be about the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust and the care and service it provides?

Towards the end of January ULHT was found to be overspent on it's budget by £14 million. That money needed to be found from the next year's budget. This was blogged by myself and can be read further down this site.

In August of 2010 the Care Quality Commission, the body responsible for ensuring high quality of care within the NHS, produced a report detailing failings within ULHT. This can be viewed by following this link:
http://www.cqc.org.uk/newsandevents/newsstories.cfm?FaArea1=customwidgets.content_view_1&cit_id=36570

Today, as reported on local TV Look North, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-12626000, the CQC has made a spot check visit to Pilgrim Hospital and found that care there is still not up to standard. As a result, the Trust has until 31 May to make its improvements to avoid possible prosecution or closure of services.

ULHT runs Pilgrim, Lincoln and Grantham hospitals, all establishments that people from Skegness and the surrounding area rely on for their hospital care. Given the reports of the over-spending and under-delivery of proper care and services, I think those that are responsible for the running of the Trust need to look to their laurels and get their organisation sorted out, and be extremely quick about it.

In a rural county such as Lincolnshire it is difficult enough to just get to hospital. Surely when patients do make the necessarily long and sometimes difficult journey to get there, they should expect a decent level of care? In addition, given the necessity to balance the budget because of the overspend it is going to be more difficult for the Trust to provide the required level of care!

Should we be worried? I think that probably we should!

ULHT - 14 Million Pounds Overspent - Bad News For Local Hospitals?

It has been revealed that United Lincolnshire Hopitals Trust is to over-spend it's budget by £14 million pounds this financial year. Inevitably, this is going to result in staffing cuts and possible cuts in the health services provided by the Trust at it's three sites, Lincoln Hospital, Grantham Hospital and Pilgrim Hospital in Boston.

Thankfully, Skegness Hospital is not run by this organisation, but by Lincolnshire Primary Care Trust, although the Minor Accident Unit (A&E is at is euphermistically called) is provided by ULHT under contract and as such should not, in my understanding, be directly affected.

My concern is that we, as a town, rely very heavily on Pilgrim Hospital to provide normal hospital services and I cannot see how they cannot be damaged by this overspend. I can envisage a reduction in staff and a reduction in the capacity of clincial services as a result. This is bad news for all residents in this area!

I have had a look at the ULHT website to see what they have to say for themselves but there is nothing on there that I can find, giving any information about this overspend and the fall-out from it.

We can only keep our fingers crossed that those who have allowed this overspend to happen can now up their game to come up with a solution that will not impinge on the health of our local population. I am not holding my breath.