6 Stanley Street
Worksop
Notts
S81 7HX
To:- Evan Harris MP
Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group
House Of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
6 March 2003
Dear Evan,
The NKF is receiving many reports from around the country that expenditure on renal services is being reined back in by the new commissioning bodies at PCT level. There is a common thread to all the stories, i.e. that the new commissioners have no understanding at all of renal matters and that their only concern is to pull back expenditure before the renal NSF is published. They presumably feel that this will lower the baseline from where they will have to work following its publication.
This is extremely bad news, for all the progress that we have made in a number of areas over recent years is now being unravelled. Patients really are having the “clock turned back”.
If patients only had to survive this for a matter of weeks then I would imaging that they could, however, recent indications are that the NSF is now delayed and whereas the first modules were expected in April, we now understand that the only promise from David Lammy MP, Minister for Health, is that the modules will be published “this year”.
The National Kidney Federation fears that by then, so much will have been halted, that Patients will be in severe difficulties and that all that the Renal NSF will achieve will be a ten year programme of activity to take us back to where we were. We also do not believe that the published NSF will contain any hard and fast milestones which have to be met by commissioners in a given timescale – this has made us very suspicious of the Governments motivation.
It is a matter of great concern to us that money for renal services is no longer to be ring fenced.
The NKF is now alarmed by the prospect that renal disease will once again become a Cinderella disease. A Disease which is not any “resource spenders” direct responsibility and with no firm commitments as to levels of provision that are uniform throughout the country. We wanted the NSF to end postcode provision – but now it looks as though the opposite is happening.
These are serious issues and the NKF would like a meeting with you to discuss what the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group might be able to do about this.
I would like to propose a meeting which included, an officer of the NKF, the NKF advocacy Officer, and myself. This could be anywhere of your choosing – perhaps in London or in your Constituency, but we do need to act quickly before permanent damage is done to renal provision.
I do hope that you will agree to a meeting.
Timothy F Statham OBE
Chief Executive of the NKF
And Secretariat to the APPKG
c.c.Officers of the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group
The National Kidney Federation cannot accept responsibility for the views expressed by others in these letters pages.
Page created: 6 March 2003
Last updated: 8 February 2008
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