We can now ALL do our bit:
If Poole Council is your local authority, please email one of the Health Scrutiny Councillors below, or write to them about this issue. Don’t forget to give your name and address.
The Health Scrutiny Councillors are:
Chair Jane Newell: [email protected]
Vice Chair Vishal Gupta: [email protected]
Jennifer Hodges: [email protected]
Marion Pope: [email protected]
Malcolm Farrell [email protected]
Louise Russell: [email protected]
Russell Trent: [email protected]
Drew Mellor: [email protected]
‘Dear Councillor
I implore you as a Councillor of Poole Borough to refer the plans to downgrade Poole A&E and close Poole Maternity to the Secretary of State, for Independent Review. I most gravely believe that the Dorset CCG has not attended to the known risk to residents inherent in these plans.
Please can I draw your attention to the Ambulance Trust Report: “Dorset Clinical Services Review: Modelling the Potential Impact on the Emergency Ambulance Service?* This Report looks at Dorset emergencies transported by Ambulance January-April 2017 and asks “What would have happened to these patients if Poole Trauma A&E and Specialist Maternity had not been there?”
The Report looked at all the Maternity and Paediatric cases transported over the four month period and identified 3 Maternity cases (p10), and 4 Paediatric cases (p24) where the Ambulance Trust were concerned about the impact on patients of longer journeys to access services. The Report also identified 696 Adult cases of concern (p15). However, due to the volume of the Adult cases, the Ambulance Trust scrutinised in detail just 150 of the 696 cases. From these 150 Adult cases, the Ambulance Trust identified 27 cases they were particularly concerned about. 27 cases out of 150 scales up to 125 Adults at potential harm out of the total pool of 696.
Dorset CCG calculated for the High Court, based on the Report, that 132 ambulance patients (3 Maternity, 4 Paediatric and 125 Adults = 132) over the 4 months of the Report, or 396 per year, would be “at potential risk of harm”. However, Dorset CCG has not done the further work called for by the Report to establish the extent of the risk to these 396 ambulance patients. Nevertheless, the danger for many cases in the Report is clear: a child post cardiac arrest, an unresponsive child facing a 9 minute longer journey, a mum-to-be with ectopic pregnancy, in extreme pain, with internal bleeding and fatally low blood pressure, facing a 19 minute longer journey.
A Dorset Emergency Medicine Consultant reviewed the cases in the Report and assessed that just under half were in imminent danger of dying, so that any longer journey was likely to prove fatal. This scales up to 183 likely fatalities per year amongst ambulance emergencies alone if the plans to close Trauma A&E and Specialist Maternity services at Poole go ahead.
However 396 per year at potential harm and 183 per year likely to die is actually an underestimation of what the total numbers could be, as the majority of Maternity & Paediatric emergencies, and a minority of Adult emergencies, do not arrive at Hospital by ambulance.
A Freedom of Information Act request shows that Poole A&E saw 590 Maternity emergencies last year, but the majority of these, 456 mums-to-be or 77%, did not arrive by ambulance. Because of Bournemouth Hospital’s location at the far east of the County, the majority of these mums-to-be facing maternity emergency would have longer journeys, without blue lights, to Bournemouth. There are also time critical conditions that can’t be treated in the ambulance, including Stroke, Heart Attack, some types of Cardiac Arrest, Sepsis and Meningitis. Ambulances do not carry blood so cannot treat Haemorrhage in Trauma or Maternity Emergency. Dorset CCG Consultants quote 30-45 minutes as the maximum ‘safe’ travel time in Maternity Emergency, Major Trauma and Acute Stroke.
I hope you can now understand my concerns and the necessity for these plans to be sent to the Secretary of State for referral for full Independent Review. I am sure you would not wish to make the wrong decision, which could end in needless fatalities of people who live in Poole or the wider area that the hospital serves.
Yours sincerely
* https://www.dorsetsvision.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/swast-report.pdf
