Consultation
Having decided in principle that the Nuffield unit should be closed, the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust must consult with any interested or affected parties about the proposed withdrawal of the service currently being provided. The Trust board must then consider the responses to the consultation before making a final decision.
The final decision will be submitted for review by a local authority Standing Scrutiny Panel: in this case Ealing has been chosen as the local authority in whose area the Nuffield Unit is situated. The Scrutiny panel also keeps and eye on the consultation process and its quality. The scrutiny panel cannot prevent the RFH Trust from closing the Nuffield Unit. Details of the scrutiny process may be found under the campaign menu.
If anyone is not satisfied with the process by which a final decision has been reached, then they can seek a Judicial Review.
Consultation Paper
A paper setting out the issues to be considered has been published by Mr Andrew Way (chief executive of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust). Printed copies of this paper can be obtained by post from Mr Denis Taylor, General Manager, Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, 330 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8DA (Telephone 020 7915 1384, Fax 020 7833 5518).
Alternatively, a PDF version of the consultation document can be downloaded (1.3 Mbytes) from the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust Web site or directly from here.
Distribution
Parents were invited by Mr Way to submit a list of people and organisations to whom the consultation paper should be sent before it had been finalised. The list supplied by parents included the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, the charity AFASIC, academic researchers, all the people who wrote to the Royal Free Hampstead trust in support of the Nuffield Unit before the January board meeting and parents of all children who had attended the Nuffield Unit over the past five years. It later transpired that Mr Way did not send the paper to anyone other than the people mentioned in the document itself. The matter was raised in the first public meeting: Mr Way stated that the people listed by parents were not suitable to receive the consultation paper, and that he had no intention sending copies to them. This response (which is set out in the notes for the first public consultation meeting) forms part of the basis for a complaint which has been sent to the Ealing Scrutiny Panel. Parents are now trying to send copies of the consultation paper to interested parties at their own expense.
We are concerned that some people may not have access to the web site, and may therefore be unaware of the document. If you believe that you should have been sent a copy, or you know of someone in that situation, please inform Mr Taylor at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital. We would like to hear from anyone affected in this way.
We are also aware that the document makes mention of public meetings, but that it gives no specific times (these are given below). We believe that parents of children currently attending the unit did not receive formal notification of the times of these meetings either, even as late as a few days before the first meeting. Again, if you know of someone who may not have been informed of the meetings, please pass on the times.
If you feel that the information provided by the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust as part of the consultation process has not been adequate, please complain to the Scrutiny Panel at Ealing Local Authority, and copy your complaint to us.
How to Respond
We urge everyone with an opinion on the future of the unit to respond to the consultation before the June 30th deadline.
The consultation paper itself contains a small questionnaire at the end which readers are invited to send to Mr Taylor. If you regard this as too short, separate responses may be made to Mr Taylor by post or by e-mail (see the contacts details section).
In the interests of maintaining an accurate record, we would ask that anyone who makes a response should inform us of the fact. If the response is not confidential, we would appreciate receiving a copy and we might in future post some of the responses on this web site.
We hope that responses will contain practical ideas for sustaining the Nuffield unit as well as registering opposition (or support!) for the proposed closure.
It is also possible to contact members of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust's Board directly: a full list of members may be obtained from the RFH web site. It is probably best to direct messages to board members individually, by post. If you wish to use e-mail, the PA to the board is Debbie Davies.