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Andrew Way |
'I was fooled' says Free chief
Free chief told: Debt bail out? What
bail out?
ROYAL Free chief executive Andrew Way was mistakenly led to
believe that the government would bail out the hospital from
its financial crisis when he was appointed last year, the New
Journal can reveal.
In fact, ministers never had any intention to help the hospital
and have flatly refused to offer any extra support.
Mr Way said on Tuesday that only in the last six months has
it been made explicitly clear to the cash-strapped hospital
in Pond Street, Hampstead, that there will be no rescue package
from the Department of Health.
Since that discovery, Mr Way and fellow hospital managers have
drawn up a dramatic savings plan which will lead to nearly 500
jobs being axed and 100 beds being scrapped.
Asked to what extent the hospital had assumed it would be helped
out financially by the government, he told the New Journal:
“I think it was a reasonable assumption that there would
be a bail out. That’s what has happened in the past and
that’s what we had been led to expect would happen.
“A bail out would have helped with the historic debt. When
I wrote and asked for a bail out, the reply came back ‘what
bail out, we don’t know anything about a bail out, there
is no bail out’.”
The Royal Free is grappling with a £30-million deficit
and is eager to start the cutbacks as soon as possible. More
job cuts and savings are likely at the same time next year.
Mr Way, appointed last May, said that as recently as November
the hospital was still hanging out for help.
Some doctors are now facing pay cuts under new job ‘banding’
and overtime arrangements that will shave as much as £2,000
off their annual salaries. Mr Way said that the Royal Free would
see as many patients as it does now but people would leave their
hospital beds earlier and, in more cases, cared for at home.
The revelation that the hospital had been dreaming about help
from the government came as Camden’s social services and
health chief Councillor Maggie Cosin said she will write to
Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt with her concerns about the
cuts.
Cllr Cosin is worried that patients will be sent home from hospital
too quickly and the cost of looking after them at home will
be transferred to the Town Hall.
She said: “I am worried about the knock on effect and who
is going to pay for the care that some patients will need when
they are home once they have come out of the hospital.”
Cllr Cosin was among members who grilled Mr Way and hospital
chairwoman Pam Chesters – a former Tory Camden councillor
– at a special meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Commission
– a cross-party panel of backbench councillors charged
with reviewing council policy.
The commission heard how that one floor at the Royal Free is
already empty and the closure of four more wards would lead
to even more parts of the building lying vacant.
Councillors agreed to call Mr Way and Ms Chesters back before
them in June when some of the cutbacks will already be in place
and they can judge any affect on services.
Protests are due to take place outside the hospital on Tuesday
at around 12.30 pm.
The demonstration was agreed at a meeting of the Socialist Party
in the Stag pub in Gospel Oak on Monday. Unison convenor Hugo
Pierre told campaigners that staff had been resistant to get
involved so far due to fear of recriminations. |
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