Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 5)

Groupthink

In Part One of this blog, https://colocate-velindre.co.uk/is-the-new-velindre-team-incurably-out-of-touch/we described features of the New Velindre leadership group up to Autumn 2020 resembling the social behaviour known as Groupthink.

What happened next?

The external response at the time was increased clinicians’ pressure against the plans alongside the progress of a popular petition to Senedd in the same strain. Consequently the ‘Nuffield Advice’ was arranged, a contract between Velindre Board and the Nuffield Trust, and announced October 1^st.

Unfortunately the Nuffield advice was immediately peddled as an Independent Clinical Review – in particular on the website of the one Member of Senedd closest and most sympathetic to the New Velindre scheme, namely Julie Morgan MS for North Cardiff.

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Alongside the impassioned, drawn out legal fight that has been making local headlines recently, (https://colocate-velindre.co.uk/ms-lewiss-judicial-review-heres-what-you-wont-know/) the clinical fight to be heard continues unfettered.

Clinicians are speaking out

Despite a local clinician going public on Welsh television, there has been an eerie silence from Velindre. They have made no effort to either acknowledge or challenge the damning claims: that the new model of care does not, and can not, guarantee the safety of deteriorating patient on a stand-alone site without its own dedicated transport service.

Sadly, and not without irony, the broadcast went live on the same day the ambulance service acknowledged they were relying on the army to help them with unprecedented demand.

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We know that money is tight in NHS Wales- we see the effects every day, after all. Welsh Government faces tough decisions every day. These decisions directly affect the care NHS staff can provide, and the pay they receive for their efforts.

‘Magic Money’

Take nurse pay, for example. Welsh Government has offered a 3% pay rise. This is a pay cut in real terms. Mark Drakeford himself agrees that nurses deserve more, but the cash could only be found ‘from doing even less’ to provide services.

Our NHS is already facing huge challenges ensuring safe staffing levels on wards. The cost of agency nurses to cover staffing vacancies is spiralling. In at least one Welsh hospital, Consultants are being taken away from their own specialist work to cover nursing shifts. Unsurprisingly, morale is plummeting.

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Yesterday’s BBC article (Mon 4th Oct 21) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58769347 again raises the shortage of cancer specialists in Wales.

As Winston S Churchill wrote in the Hinge of Fate in 1950, there is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away.

The Royal College of Radiologists represents clinical oncologists and diagnostic radiologists, and has been active for years in collecting and publishing workforce data.

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We at Co-locate Velindre congratulate both Richard Pugh, Head of Macmillan in Wales and Dr Seema Arif, Consultant Oncologist at Velindre Oncology Centre for highlighting the growing number of terminally ill people accessing end-of-life benefits. In today’s BBC article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58769347  they report a “20% year-on-year increase in application forms for people who have less than six months to live”.

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‘To co-locate or not to co-locate’. As far as Velindre is concerned this Hamlet-like
question does not arise.  The New Velindre Team has claimed that Velindre is a
successful brand, that it should continue to be on a separate site away from other
services, and that its Team answers to no-one regarding the choice of underpinning clinical model except the Welsh Minister of Health. This group tendency is widely known as groupthink. It occurs when a group ignores problems and challenges from outsiders, exaggerates its own abilities in decision-making and underrates its opponents.

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Update! Following yesterday’s piece on Cat Lewis’s Judicial Review, here’s the latest. Media coverage, especially the less friendly, is still boosting her cause. Over £2,000 donated in three days now. And support rising as November 17th is set for an oral hearing of the application.

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A news report with unsympathetic asides on Ms Lewis’s Judicial Review yesterday has succeeded in galvanising her supporters in and beyond the community. Donations poured into her appeal all day reaching nearly a thousand pounds by evening with many donors choosing to remain anonymous.

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On the 5^th November 2020 Professor Neil Burnet and his 6 colleagues wrote to the Wales Cancer Research Centre with their concerns about the new Velindre Cancer Centre (VCC) stand-alone model of care.

Here is a summary of their main concerns:

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Warning to Health Minister

Senior doctors have written to the Welsh health Minister, Eluned Morgan, warning that pressures on the Welsh Ambulance Service are putting patient safety at risk.

BMACymru Wales Committee Chairs and Local Medical Committee chairs signed the letter, reported in Wales Online https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health/doctors-tell-health-minister-patients-21664036

What does the letter say?

In the letter the doctors refer to serious delays in urgent transport of patients to hospital, leading to avoidable harm. In some cases, the Welsh Ambulance Service has refused to attend emergency requests from the public and clinicians. Some patients have had to arrange alternative urgent transport to hospital or receive treatment in inappropriate settings.

Why does this matter to Co-locate Velindre?

Velindre’s stand- alone Cancer centre in Whitchurch frequently calls on the Welsh Ambulance Service to transport very sick patients from Velindre to the University Hospital of Wales. Staff dial 999, just as you would if you had a medical emergency at home. Velindre patients aren’t ‘fast-tracked’ by the ambulance service, as they are deemed to be in a place of relative safety, ie a hospital.

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We have consistently called for an independent review of the Velindre stand-alone model. Many people think that the Nuffield Trust have already carried out an independent review of the Velindre model, and approved it. Velindre would certainly like you to believe this. There are just two problems:

• The Nuffield Trust didn’t carry out a review of the model, and
• they didn’t approve it.

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The recently built Guy’s Cancer Centre and Liverpool’s Clatterbridge Centres show that award winning, co-located Cancer Centres are being built on small pieces of land.

Guy’s Cancer Centre occupies a footprint of just 0.51 acres on a triangular site in central London

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We set up the Colocate Velindre website just two weeks ago. We wanted to share the strongly worded letter of warning from the Wales Cancer Research Centre’s External Advisory Board as widely as possible.

We’ll continue share facts about the weakness of Velindre’s plans and their impact on our future cancer services in Wales, and give updates on our campaign.

How are we doing?

The campaign, and the website, have been well received.

The website has had up to 500 hundred hits per day. We’ve also had many emails of support. Sadly, many people working in the NHS have asked for anonymity as they fear for the impact on their careers if their opposition to the plans becomes known.

We’ve had coverage in the South Wales Echo and Western Mail, as well as Wales Online https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/velindre-cardiff-cancer-hospital-plan-21575745?fbclid=IwAR1vpkCtKZyJYMbFep3CVQ8yOBkRagAP_bH3gjgLmJQFbj-OpD6UYQzvTIg

and The National Wales https://www.thenational.wales/environment/19588501.legal-challenge-new-velindre-cancer-centre/?fbclid=IwAR2WwBM9bv4m49wiO2tpZj7a-5sdH0LCTSCHSEt9aI6fvdiuHqC1pXzRi4g

in the articles, Professor Neil Burnet, the Chair of the External Advisory Board, makes it clear that he is far from reassured by Velindre’s response to his letter, as in his view cancer centres work much better if they’re co-located with a big general hospital.

Our work goes on

We’ll continue to expose the weakness of Velindre’s plans, and provide new information as it becomes available. For instance, you’ll be able to watch a clinician explain her concerns on ITV Wales News at 6pm on Wednesday 22 September.

If you’d like to be involved, or just show your support, please get in touch at

colocatevelindre@gmail.com

We contacted all Welsh Government Assembly Members earlier this year. We summarised our concerns about the plans for the new cancer centre, and the process being used. We’re posting information from the letter on this site.

Letter signed by 163 Senior Clinicians.

After the Nuffield Trust published their advice on the risks of the stand alone model, 163 senior clinicians wrote to the Health Minister to draw his attention to their continuing significant concerns. There is a link to the full text of the letter at the top of this page.

Some quotes from the letter

• ‘we agree that co-location with an acute hospital would provide safer in-patient care, improve support from other specialities, create a better base for research and be in line with best practice elsewhere.’

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We contacted all Welsh Government Assembly Members earlier this year. We summarised our concerns about the plans for the new cancer centre, and the process being used. We’re posting information from the letter on this site.

Failure to fully engage the other stakeholder Local Health Boards in the planning process:

Both the Nuffield report and the minutes of the Health Social Care and Sports Committee meeting held on 30/09/2020   [https://record.assembly.wales/Committee/6443] discuss the quality of engagement.

The Nuffield Trust report makes the following points about the Transforming Cancer Services Programme

• A strong emphasis on care closer to home and the design of care around the patient’s need.
• Enhanced care within the Local Health Boards (LHB).
• Three or more Velindre@ specialist units supported by VCC, providing a range of ambulatory cancer services within LHB sites and working closely with local services.
• A VCC satellite radiotherapy unit at Abergavenny.
• A new VCC including acute care and providing the Velindre@ for the Cardiff & Vale LHB.

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