6.1 To consider the following motion from Councillor Guest;
Motion to Council from Health in Dacorum Committee
“This Council believes that the people of Dacorum deserve the best possible healthcare available. This Council believes that adequate NHS cover is an essential part of the infrastructure required to support the increased house building that is coming to Dacorum.
This Council remembers the promise of 24 hours a day, seven days a week Urgent Care Cover when the Accident and Emergency Department at Hemel Hempstead Hospital was closed in 2009.
This Council supports the Urgent Treatment Centre at Hemel Hempstead Hospital being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week with doctors on call in Hemel Hempstead for all that time, and urges the NHS to open the Urgent Treatment Centre for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with doctor cover”.
6.2 To consider the following motion from Councillor Tindall;
‘’This Council believes that access to Adventure Playgrounds should be all-year round as they play an important role in the safeguarding of vulnerable children and contribute to the healthy development of all children, and further believes that such provision should continue’’
Decision:
The following motion from Councillor Guest was agreed.
“This Council believes that the people of Dacorum deserve the best possible healthcare available. This Council believes that adequate NHS cover is an essential part of the infrastructure required to support the increased house building that is coming to Dacorum.
This Council remembers the promise of 24 hours a day, seven days a week Urgent Care Cover when the Accident and Emergency Department at Hemel Hempstead Hospital was closed in 2009.
This Council supports the Urgent Treatment Centre at Hemel Hempstead Hospital being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week with doctors on call in Hemel Hempstead for all that time, and urges the NHS to open the Urgent Treatment Centre for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with doctor cover”.
The following motion from Councillor Tindall was lost.
‘’This council believes that access to Adventure Playgrounds should be all-year round as they play an important role in the safeguarding of vulnerable children and contribute to the healthy development of all children, and further believes that such provision should continue’’
Minutes:
1. Cllr Guest read out Motion submitted and commented that in 2009 the closure of the A&E at Hemel Hempstead was met by anger by local people. Despite all the meetings and petitions it still happened. We, the people of Dacorum, were told that when it was closed, it would be replaced with an urgent care centre open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Alas, it is no longer 24/7. When it was decided to close it at night we were told it was on a temporary basis as a doctor was not always available at night. It has since been changed to an Urgent Treatment Centre. Watford has A&E with a separate children’s A&E and acute beds. St Albans has acute beds. Hemel Hempstead is one of the biggest towns in Hertfordshire and has nothing. As a Council we do not deliver healthcare, but we do speak on behalf of our residents. Opening the treatment centre 24/7 will honour a promise made at the closing of A&E.
Mayor asked, do you have a seconder. Cllr Taylor seconded the motion.
Cllr England advised that he wished to move an amendment and proposed the following Amendment:
(1) In the first line of
paragraph 3, delete the words 'at Hemel Hempstead Hospital', and
replace with 'in Hemel Hempstead'.
(2) Add to the motion a fourth paragraph that reads :-
‘We further call upon Dacorum Borough Council together with Herts Valleys CCG to make representations to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to provide the necessary finance for the Urgent Treatment Centre to be established in Hemel Hempstead.’
Councillor England spoke to the reason for the amendment:
Aren’t we realists enough to recognise that promises worth the name have to be paid for?
If we are willing the outcome we as a Council must will the means, otherwise this Motion is just cosmetic.
For that reason, I would like to see the Motion amended to present the HVCCG with the tangible support of a practical and resident-supported Dacorum Borough Council call for new NHS funding, funding on which it can lean in order to actually ask for the needed resources which all of us can then expect to make the difference we also seek by the Motion.
Cllr Tindall explained the reason for part (1) of the Amendment.
The amendment was seconded by Cllr Tindall.
Cllr Taylor responded to the amendment and advised that the motion put forward has taken a lot of time, effort and energy to ensure we are making a concise proposal. It is our opinion that the words we have put before Council this evening are the words we would like to stick with.
The Mayor moved the amendment to debate.
Cllr Williams asked for explanation for reason for the amendment.
Cllr England responded that the purpose for the second part of the amendment is to give some sense of purpose to the entire motion; what we are asking for is something that has to be paid for and it is our understanding that the HVCCG doesn’t have any money at the moment and we need to ask them to ask the NHS for more money.
Cllr Tindall added, as a point of clarification and the earlier question about what is happening to the market square; you will recall last year I suggested this would be a good site for hospital.
Cllr Birnie referred to the question asking for NHS England to provide funding and commented that it is the responsibility of HVCCG to provide their own funding, asking them to go to NHS is weakening their position. Speaking as part of Health committee both here and at County, I believe that HVCCG will be delighted to take that position to slip away from responsibility for providing funding, I would oppose that amendment.
Cllr Douris referred to the amendment that Cllr England has put forward of a 4th paragraph, which is not short, suggesting not able to take a clear view on it as a verbal amendment and would like to view wording before any amendment is agreed.
The Mayor placed the wording on the large screen.
Cllr Williams commented, that considering the comments that have been made, he urged Members not to support amendment. He did not recollect HVCCG saying the reason for the site not being open 24/7 is funding; originally it was staff, now consultation. This Council has always taken the view that we need to maximise healthcare provision at Hemel Hempstead; accepting we will not get an acute hospital at both Hemel & Watford. Cllr England’s proposal weakens the motion. Transfer of facilities to market square or any similar sized site will only dilute how much can be provided in terms of services. The moment we let that site go and let them move to a smaller site, we lose our argument to get facilities returned to the Hemel Site. We need to urge the health providers to return as much care as possible to the existing site. Amendment to Para 3 in my thinking weakens that argument. We have an urgent treatment centre in Hemel Hempstead, the purpose of this is to insist that we keep a 24/7 provision in Hemel, we need to keep pressure on and not give any opportunity for them to weaken the services or move them to a small insignificant facility. He urged his colleagues to reject the amendment.
Cllr Tindall responded that he can accept what Cllr Williams has said in its entirety and added that the amendment does not change the emphasis of the first 3 paragraphs other than to cut out the word hospital. The first 3 paras do not say what we do next. Addition of a 4th paragraph is to get council in conjunction with HVCCG to put pressure on Secretary of State. End of day the government hold the purse strings and they are denying NHS the possibility to go forward; feel the MP should be involved in this.
The Mayor moved to a vote on the amendment, by a show of hand;
Those in favour – 6
Against – 32
Abstain – 2
Mayor advised would now move to the original motion and open to debate.
Cllr Maddern clarified a couple of points behind reason of the motion, which was discussed at length in Health in Dacorum committee. Not sure if everyone aware, the consultation about the UTC being opened at nights was consulted on in Bushy. I think we need to put pressure on HVCCG as it is nothing to do with Bushy, it is about needs of Dacorum.
Cllr England commented “There is multi-party agreement that Hemel Hempstead is under-served when it comes to Urgent Care/Treatment Services and, really, any ‘recognisable’ NHS services. The famous 2009 “A&E buy-off” promise of 24/7 Urgent Care/Treatment will be a decade old next year, having remained intact for eight years before “patient-safety” choked it to its sudden winter decline and restraint to hobbled hours.
We have more recently been told that Urgent Treatment had to go part-time because it is ‘difficult to find staff who want to work at the Hillfield Road site’ (maybe because it is now half-derelict, and because Hemel Hempstead services have been repeatedly diluted until they run clear of key staff opportunities).
So despite the level of agreement about inadequate services, there is an argument at every General Election 2010, 2015, 2017, about whether it was under Labour or Conservatives that our A&E was closed.
Whichever it was, voters in Hemel Hempstead, voters in Dacorum keep reading about new housing here and here and here again, which means additional customers lined-up for what are, in fact, shrinking per capita services.
We all know that the NHS is, every year, being asked to do more, for more vulnerable people – even without adding-in the “crowded south-east” complication. This enables some people to claim technically correctly, that the NHS has “more” money, while the reality is we have more butter, but more bread to spread. These arguments are going stale.”
Cllr Timmis commented that she supports the motion as voiced by Cllr Guest and questioned what actual influence and effect does this motion have on WHCT and CCG
Cllr Taylor commented that the motion is before you, we have a precise and concise proposal which the Chairman of the Health Scrutiny Committee and myself as Vice are happy to propose as stands.
The Mayor moved to a vote on the motion, by a show of hand, the motion was carried unanimously.
Cllr Taylor thanked Council for support from all parties
2. Cllr Tindall introduced his motion as a straightforward statement in support of our Adventure Playgrounds, which he believes are part of the mosaic of services we need to engage with people. Access to these play an important role in the development of healthy children and provide a port in a storm for some of those children who are perhaps more vulnerable. I recently visited and whilst numbers might be small in winter, those attending are the children who perhaps have less opportunity to go anywhere else and they are therefore able to be at the Adventure Playgrounds and be safe. If the playgrounds were closed those children would be left to fend for themselves. I am in favour of no closures and keeping same hours as before, but I didn’t want to restrict the Council’s ability to come to that decision or make that arrangements, therefore the wording is straightforward.
Cllr England seconded the motion.
Cllr Ritchie made the point that Adventure Playgrounds should be available throughout the Borough, there are only 4, all of which are in Hemel Hempstead, that is not the borough which stretches from Markyate to Tring. We do not see them outside of Hemel Hempstead, that is not fair.
Cllr Williams commented that if you research the history of Watford you will see they were closed for all but 6 weeks of the year by Lib Dems with many redundancies.
Cllr England expressed, and it was minuted, that he supported the changes to Adventure Playgrounds. We would like to keep them open for 52 weeks but we have to strike a balance. We have identified the times they are under used. We know they are occasionally used by parents as an unofficial after school service while they are at work, which is not what they are intended for, it is not a secure facility, and children can come and go as they feel. We need to protect services as best we can but within budgetary constraints. We agreed the saving from this change and no Councillor opposed it. To achieve the saving without making these changes we will have to close an entire playground and we do not want to do that. The Lib Dems have not proposed where else that saving would come from. You cannot support at one meeting then jump on bandwagon and ask us to spend spend spend with no alternative. I propose we reject this motion.
Cllr England added, since the budget debate I have done more research and it has become clear what was presented in Budgets last December and seemed at the time an evidenced rational economy is in fact something else and that the staff implications that we see now are way beyond what is OK for safeguarding. From discussions with Simone Payne, the organiser of the petition, and whose Mum worked at the Adventure Playgrounds for a long time, and others who know the Adventure Playgrounds, the kids who use it in winter are the ones who really need it. That petition now has 2,400 signatures. Indeed I have spoken with the Watford Lib Dem’s about this and I understand that they provided alternative facilities for their kids’ needs. Although the age-ranges have been adjusted to reduce the young-age safeguarding burden which staff have, my concern, and from discussions I have had with Simone Payne this is her main concern too, it is vital that the four Adventure Playgrounds continue to have a manager each, for all of the opening hours. Safeguarding includes knowing the kids and having continuity. This seems a minimum sensible requirement. We urge the Council instead to seek additional uses for these buildings during the school-hours down time, to make them full-time hubs of the volunteer partnership between DBC and the residents. Just because their value cannot be commercially measured does not mean they do not bring real value and could do more: Perhaps the increasing proportion of the local population which is on active early retirement age can seek it’s own adventure preparing and repairing crafts and cooking, taking care of new allotments, taking on dog-walking and training, venturing out to report defects and clear litter and recycling?
By making these Adventure Playgrounds more versatile they can add value to the whole community.”
Mayor moved the motion to vote, by show of hands;
Favour – 4
Against - 29
Abstained – 5
Motion not passed.