Mr Goodson, Chief Executive Dorset CCG, please answer the following:

In response to Tim Goodson:

Giovanna Lewis

Also please see:

In response to Tim Goodson – I would like to say/ask

1. If the plans to improve access to RBH via a link road pre-date the Clinical Services Review which began in 2014, how on earth can we be confident that this access will ever be built? Surely, Poole A+E has to stay where it is at least until any new access road has been built – which in itself is uncertain in terms of finance and Environment Agency/flood plan objections.
2. Engagement with Clinicians – I have worked with GP’s and observed at first hand the disillusionment of many to ‘change’ plans and the use of ‘spin’ to claim engagement and consultation when in reality most do not have the motivation or time to respond.  I am also aware that the most vocal leading GP heralding these plans as the best thing to happen, was also rewarded with a top job within NHS England, London this year!
3. Public engagement – I am also aware that, when many people answered ‘Yes’ to wanting Care Closer to Home, they did not realise this meant closing local community beds as part of the plan.  The CCG said this info was available, but as a link on a different website and, not within the consultation itself!
4. We know that Poole A+E is ‘changing’ – it is changing to an Urgent Care Centre which means that serious emergency problems will have to go to Bournemouth.  Your promise of a possible ‘increase in treatments available in the future’ – please do not try to bribe us with future promise.  If it is not certain now, then it cannot be put into the equation. Whatever stats you quote, we cannot be fooled into believing that replacing Dorset’s Regional Trauma Centre with an Urgent Care Centre (ie not much more than a Minor Injuries Centre) is a good deal.
5. If you really have to get rid of one of Dorset’s 3 A+E centres (which I believe strongly you should not), then why not consolidate specialist A+E consultants at Poole instead of Bournemouth?  Poole is much easier and safer to access – shouldn’t this be a major criteria for Emergency Service planning?  Presumably this would also reduce the same number of hospital transfers that you say expanding Bournemouth could do?
6. Yes, most people will need more planned, rather than emergency, care in their lives, but emergency care requires speedy and safe access to emergency care – planned care does not.    Surely it is more important to be able to get to emergency treatment quickly than it is to be able to catch a train or a ‘bus for a planned op?
7. Re adding to congestion’.  You say that the number of people travelling from one hospital to another will stay about the same – they will be just travelling in different directions!  But then you also claim that transfers will reduce by expanding Bournemouth Hospital!  Which one is it?
8. You say ‘I can assure you that we are not cutting the total spend in Dorset on health services’  yet your DMBC says you need to cut £229m per year in running costs and that developing Bournemouth, rather than Poole, will cost £40 million less.

Come on Tim Goodson, and the whole of the CCG, we need your support here in Dorset.  We need you to have the courage to demand extra money from Government and NHS England so that you don’t have to reduce your running costs, you don’t have to close hospital beds, hospitals, A+E services and maternity services because there are not enough staff.  We need you to shout with your loudest voices that Government and NHS England need to bring back nursing bursaries, adequately fund nursing apprenticeships, retain ‘fleeing’ European NHS staff, reward all staff properly, figure out how to reduce workplace stress and unnecessary demand, and create well-planned effective workplaces – where people will be queing up at the door to work for you.