A GP has criticised an NHS trust’s decision not to accept a proposed contract extension as not “safe or fair to patients.”
Cllr Ivan Camphor, who works as a GP in Woodchurch, made the comments during a Wirral Council meeting where councillors were debating future options for an NHS contract.
The contract, signed between Wirral Council and the Wirral Community Health and Care Foundation Trust (WCHCFT) outsourced the assessment of people needing social care or certain support services in 2017.
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The local authority is now looking at bringing the service under its direct control and councillors proposed in October 2022 to extend the contract to September 2024 to allow the council more time to do this. This would affect around 230 staff.
This was rejected by WCHCFT in December due “perceived risk to the Trust'' and requested the council consider extending the contract by five years instead.
Councillors were debating at the meeting whether to accept extending it by five years or look at bringing it under council control by April or in the next 12 months requiring the Trust to honour the notice period.
Cllr Camphor said he was “dismayed with the Trust’s attitude” adding: “I do not think that is safe or fair to patients of people working in these circumstances.”
He was worried there wasn’t enough time to allow a smooth transition of care for patients. He said: “My biggest concern is that given the current state of employment of social workers and safeguarding, how can we make sure that is safely transferred in the period?”
According to the council, the contract states a notice period of 12 months must be given unless both the council and the trust agreed to end the partnership early. The council were only notified in December the trust had rejected the offer.
Cllr Camphor said: “It would make imminent sense to hold them to their contract and to say you have to do it in 12 months because that would be a safe period of transition and staff are reassured.”
WCHCFT said the reasons for its decision were concerns with “the Trust’s relationship with the Council” as well as concerns about “the integrity of the integrated service quality and safety” and “the continued recruitment and retention of social care staff.”
However the Trust was repeatedly criticised in the meeting. Cllr Mary Jordan, who also works in the NHS, said: “I find it distasteful that an NHS organisation would give us such an ultimatum given that our central theme of the NHS is putting patients at the heart of what we do and this doesn’t seem to be putting patients at the heart of what we do.”
Cllr Angela Davies also pleaded with council officers to keep staff informed about what the changes could mean for them, saying it was “very unsettling for staff when there’s such a big change.”
She said: “If staff are happy, they deliver a good service. We want to put people at the centre of good quality health and social care.
“Please please please as things progress or don’t progress, can we have that we keep staff informed every step of the way?”
Councillors were reassured meetings with staff were regularly being held with several attending to watch the meeting. Councillors eventually voted to allow the council to negotiate with WCHCFT a period of notice where the social care provided in the contract could be safely transferred back under full control of the council.
However concerns were raised about the potential financial impact this could have given the council’s current budget situation with a projected deficit of £32m
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