Requirements of the Tory Government’s Sustainability and Transformation Plan scheme are producing obstacles to a new CAMHS unit being built in Hull, Emma Hardy MP has said.
Speaking in the House of Commons today, Emma told MPs about how a much needed CAMHS unit for which funding had been announced twice over the last year still had not received the funding.
The Sustainability and Transformation Plans came about as a result of the Tory Government’s NHS reorganisation of the NHS in the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The reorganisation of the NHS after this Act was the biggest reorganisation to occur in the health service since the introduction of the NHS in 1948.
In a letter from the Exchequer Secretary at the Treasury, Robert Jenrick MP, Emma was informed that the next steps would be for the Humber NHS Trust to submit its business case, something it has done twice already.
Following meetings with the Trust, Emma was told by officials in Humber NHS Trust that Sustainability and Transformation Plan processes confuse funding application procedures.
Commenting after the speech, Emma said “Hull desperately needs a new Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services unit and I was delighted when the announcement of the funding was made in August. So you can understand the anger that I feel that the Government seems to be no further towards releasing the money.
The people of Hull are sick of bureaucratic barriers being thrown up to prevent us from getting the CAMHS unit we so desperately need. We’re even more annoyed when the government claim that more money has been put into the NHS when the same money has been announced twice already and, looking at the letter I received from the Exchequer Secretary, will no doubt be announced a third time before we eventually do get it.
The bureaucratic, complicated, fragmented system put in place by the Health and Social Care Act does no good for anybody. It does not properly achieve rapid action on local needs. It needs to be rethought, reinvented and reconfigured.
Timeline
A full timeline of the Trust’s application process is as follows:
- Original Loan application was submitted in July 2017 (13th July).
- Further information was requested in August, which was sent (22nd August).
- This was followed up by a visit to the Trust by the Loans Committee (6th September).
- The Trust sent amended docs and the committee approved the initial loan application for £6.5m in September (20th September).
- They subsequently applied for an increased loan of £7.5m in December which was approved by the committee (19th December).
- The Trust have been in regular dialogue with Nick Rose at the Department for Health and Social to try and drawdown the capital, however the national constrain on CDEL and prevented this.
- The Trust also submitted a Sustainability and Transformation Plan Capital Bid for Wave I in April 2017 but was unsuccessful with its application, as no bids were approved for the Humber Coast and Vale Sustainability and Transformation Plan.
- The Trust resubmitted a STP Bid following consultation with NHS Improvement in January 2018 and it received notification that it had been successful in March 2018.
- The Trust has submitted a refreshed business case, STP Estates Strategy and Value for Money template to NHS Improvement, this was approved by the Regional NHS Improvement Finance Committee on Friday and is now due to be sent to the Department.
- The money has been announced for this project on at least two occasions. August and March.
Emma’s campaign for answers
- Emma asked a question to the Chancellor on the 17th April to ask him why the money appeared to be stuck in the Treasury, she was asked to write to him about the case.
- Emma wrote a letter to him on the 18th April, as requested, setting out the details of the case.
- On the 11th May, Emma tabled a written Parliamentary question asking when she would receive an answer to the letter.
- Emma’s question was answered on the 17th May by the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, Robert Jenrick. The response was very confusing as it said the Trust had to submit its business case which had already been done.
