Letter from Professor Steven West, University
of the West of England to Dr Doug Naysmith MP (WP 89)
As you will see from the letter head I am DVC
at UWE and prior to that I was Dean of the Faculty of Health and
Social Care. My other roles in the region include being a Non-Executive
on the Strategic Health Authorityand I chaired the Integration
Board for the merger of the Ambulance Trusts.
The purpose of writing is to provide you with
some background information concerning the health workforce education
commissioning situation in our local health community and the
impact it will have on the university, its students and staff.
I am also aware that I shall be presenting evidence to you in
a few weeks in your capacity as a member of the health committee
considering "workforce needs and planning for the health
service" towards the end of this month.
As you will be aware our health community is
in significant financial difficulty. Historically we have been
trying to manage a recurring debt of approximately £200 million
pa. This year AGW presented local delivery plans to the Department
of Health that were not financially balanced. The Department rejected
them and the SHA was tasked to close the £40 million deficit.
In order to do this the service has been required to reduce services
and freeze posts. In addition, in May of this year the university
was informed that the commissioned activity for September 2006
and January 2007 needed to be reduced to make a saving of £1.6
million over the NHS financial year. Unfortunately the reductions,
if implemented, will reduce our activities over a three years
period, will see some programmes close completely and this will
lead to no outputs of some students in 12 months and three years
time. The overall financial cost to the University will be in
the order of £5 million and will necessitate some redundancies.
There are several worrying features to the action being taken:
1. The very late notice of intention to reduce
and stop commissions.
2. The lack of any relationship to workforce
planning needs to the action taken by the SHA given that we had
previously received assurances in December 2005 and March 2006
that the minimum commissioned numbers were assured. These numbers
had already seen some reduction in activity on 2005-06 commissions.
3. The total lack of any modelling on the
implications of the proposed actions on service delivery next
year and then in 2009-10.
4. The reduction in pre and post registration
commission which impact offers already made by the university
to prospective students and the reduction of the continuing professional
development for existing NHS staff, thus reducing the potential
for modernisation of the workforce.
Whilst the University understands the difficulties
the NHS are currently experiencing we are surprised that they
are taking such extreme actions to resolve what we have been told
is a 2006-07 problem. It is surprising that the solutions offered
by the University to make the cash savings without the need to
significantly reduce commission numbers have not been accepted.
It is also surprising that the NHS accepts no liabilities associated
with these reductions. Most worrying of all is the clear message
that the funding initially allocated to SHAs by the DoH to support
education and training against workforce plans is no longer "ring
fenced" for that purpose.
I hope that this information will provide you
with the local context and might aid in exploring workforce planning,
funding and modernisation agendas further. Our major concern is
that the rapid expansion in commissioned numbers over the last
five years to deliver the government agenda now seems to be in
reverse and we are likely to return to the rapid swings observed
in workforce during the 1990s. It is very interesting to note
that medicine and dentistry do not show these swings and seem
to be more stable in respect of their education funding streams
and workforce numbers.
I have attached to this letter a table showing
the reductions against 2005-06 intakes. I look forward to presenting
oral evidence in due course and in the meantime would be happy
to discuss our local issues with you if it would be of value.
Professor Steven West
University of the West of England
16 June 2006
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