As pressure mounts on bureaucrats to scrap their decision to cut provision at Poole hospital a local nurse and an activist are continuing to reflect the deep seated opposition.
Nurse savages decision to cut provision at Poole hospital:
“Having worked at Poole Hospital for 28 years, I am passionate about Poole and it’s incredible services and staff. Poole Hospital is a centre of excellence on the verge of being decimated and downgraded against patients’ and the local population’s wishes.
For Debbie Fleming to say that staff are “on board” is absolutely ridiculous.
Does it really make sense to have to build a new maternity unit at RBH and to expect our wonderful midwives to relocate to Bournemouth?
Why would she expect the staff to travel to Bournemouth when their chosen place of work is Poole?
Poole will be devoid of our excellent maternity and paediatric services, and our outstanding A&E department, which is the sixth best performing A&E in the UK. It just doesn’t make good sense.
We are told that it is in the patients’ best interest to make RBH the new major A&E in the county. I beg to differ.
Defend Dorset have said quite rightly that only a minimal risk assessment has been carried out regarding patients’ travel times across to the east of the county to reach RBH.
For patients from the west of the county the travel times are unacceptable, and put patients’ lives at risk.
The supposed “new access road” across Wessex Fields is already creating enormous problems and what with the cost of the new maternity unit, the overall financial cost to relocate these services to RBH will be prohibitive against retaining these services at Poole, which are already established and providing a good service.
Oh but Poole hasn’t got a “helipad”, I hear Debbie Fleming say, which is a major reason to relocate services to Bournemouth.
What of it? I have seen helicopters land right outside Longfleet Road and Whitecliff, no problem. How many times has RBH used their helipad?
But it’s not all bad news, Debbie Fleming is now the interim CEO of both Poole and Bournemouth Hospitals with a sizeable increase in her pay packet.”
Dawn Singleton, Poole
Debbie Flemming : Merger delay could jeopardise plans to upgrade hospitals
Debbie Flemming
CEO Poole and RBH Hospitals
Dear Ms Flemming,
You write in the Echo 26th January that delays, brought about by a judicial review appeal, and referral of DCCG plans to an Independent Panel, could lead to Dorset losing an allocated £147 million for merger plans.
But then Ms Flemming, in respect of proportioning responsibility for delays, you need to take note of why it has been necessary for the people of Dorset to refer the issue and take legal action in the courts.
The overwhelming majority of public in Poole and in rural Dorset are opposed to the loss of A&E from Poole, loss of maternity, and it seems now loss of large parts of oncology to RBH. This opposition could not be clearer in surveys, media coverage, petitions with 40,000 signatures.
In terms then of referral the whole issue could have been referred over a year ago, December 2017, if two Poole Cllrs had not abstained at a joint Poole, Bournemouth, Dorset, Health and Care Scrutiny meeting. All but for the two Cllrs abstaining the independent revue would have taken place spring 2018. We are then a full year behind where we could have been.
That responsibility falls then squarely on Poole Council Conservative administration, and Poole MP Robert Syms, who for two years have refused to recognise the huge opposition to loss of Poole A&E and maternity.
At any time Poole Cllrs and MP could have organised a major public meeting on the whole issue. This has been asked for repeatedly and ignored. So again Ms Flemming if you want to look for responsibility, for inaction and delay, then please take note of the blanket failure of those we elect to take care of our town and the people in our town.
Breathtaking failure of political leadership – we have then ended up with a voluntary group doing the work of elected funded Cllrs. And in this all the reasons why the issue has raged with then no option for the public but to direct back to government for an independent review, and into the courts.
On then specific points, your refer to £147 million “out there with our name on it” saying it is “Treasury cash which does not have to be paid back”. But that is half the truth Ms Flemming is it not.
Of course we don’t have to pay it back because it is the sum of money that is being saved through huge cuts in NHS Dorset operational costs. DCCG state time and time again there is huge and growing deficit, quoting “£157 million by 2022”. That sum is then being saved with close-downs of large parts of our local health service : Poole A&E, Poole maternity, 400 beds to go from Poole hospital, along with closure or removal of beds in community hospitals. It is this programme Ms Flemming that is then releasing the £147 million for capital investment in RBH : the grand centralisation plan.
That is the truth is it not. You tell us about the excellence of a centralised emergency services with 24/7 consultant cover, but DCCG have very little to say on the cost of this centralisation with considerably increased travel distances. So we end up some gain, some lose. Lose meaning losing life through considerably increased travel times. That is the issue Ms Flemming. The need for two fully funded major hospitals both with 24/7 emergency services, both with urgent care units, both with full maternity services. With growing population heading for 500,000 the demand could not be clearer.
In this respect in terms of modern planning you speak of our two general hospitals for our conurbation being “so close together”. But that is not the case. To quote one area I know well, north Surrey, Epsom, Kingston, and St Heliers Carshalton, mutually ten miles apart. Each a large general hospital, each with A&E and maternity. All admit A&E patients, all have urgent care units, emergency surgery carried out at Kingston and St Helier. That then is three general hospital for a population of 410,000. I therefor do not see how you can claim having two hospitals with A&E tens miles apart is anything but the right provision for our population of near 500,000.
And likewise in north London it is widely reported in media that when one large A&E was closed, replaced by an urgent care unit, this then threw even more pressure on other neighbouring A&E departments. And to keep in mind for our conurbation there are no other nearby options are there, as there are in a city.
You also speak of misunderstandings. A great deal of that falls then on DCCG misinformation. The fact is DCCG executives are selling this package to the public, as presented to the public by marketing departments. You are then giving a one-sided view, with all the positives you want us all to recognise, whilst the negatives are ignored. That then is the crying need for scrutiny, which should have been supplied by our local authority. But then for eighteen months Poole cabinet initiated no action. Went into silent mode hoping it would all blow away.
And so it is in the place of Poole cabinet taking a lead, campaigners, Defend Dorset NHS, running a first rate evidence based campaign, have worked tirelessly for three years to work out what is going on and speak up against all that is considered not in the best interest of our towns. But then from all I have seen they have been shut out of equal terms exchanges in meetings. Instead left on the side-lines, as if spectators.
And that is deeply regetable when they are speaking for the overwhelming majority of the population of Poole through to the Purbecks. In the end we are only as good as our “opposition” are we not. Critical scrutiny is essence – but that has all been closed out and we end with a DCCG marketing campaign, with people left then trying to work out what is happening. And in that the misunderstandings you speak of.
On then the medical issues you speak of 24/7 consultant care in one centralised trauma centre, at RBH. That then is all well and good but still leaves the issue that the Purbecks, for instance, are 30 miles from RBH. We end with a centre of excellence on the far eastern edge of the country with travel times (one way) of over an hour. That then has consequences which have been spelled out time and again.
And you say there is no facility to land a helicopter at Poole crowded site. That then is not exactly correct is it. There is Poole park 300 yards away. It is not a helipad but in an emergency there is space to land, as countless helicopters land in large back gardens every day of the week. And, that said, a helipad could be built into the park. Indeed, further, should be built into the park to serve the hospital and any other public emergencies.
And workforce challenges, on that one you have CEO every respect and sympathy. The problems are huge and clearly post 29th March, the way matters are heading, this issue of staffing is going to become all the more dire. However, of all the challenges, to return nurses-in-training bursaries must go a long way to drawing in new staff, of all ages and backgrounds, rather than launching young people into their careers with huge debts up to £60,000.
The tragedy in the end Ms Flemming is one of gravity : the power and gravity of capital : returns on capital. We can make vastly higher returns on investment in gaming, hedge funds, bonds, insurance markets, stocks, currency markets, than we ever can on health care. The profits from for instance one gaming group last year, Coral-Ladbrokes, is near the self-same sum as the capital short-fall for NHS Dorset : £158 million. And that is Corals-Ladbroke located, of course, in a tax haven – in this case Gibraltar.
Mind boggling isn’t it : more wealth in one gaming industry company than in the whole of Dorset health care, but that is the bottom line greed driven society we have created. Our NHS cries out for funding whilst burgeoning gaming, gambling, banking, hedge funds, reap profits and wealth beyond measure.
Stating these points doesn’t I know directly help our state of underfunding in Dorset – but it needs stating. The botton line is underfunding, which clearly as a CEO for the hospitals you are trying to square. But then we have wholesale opposition to the plans as they stand. Yes to modernisation, yes to separating emergency cases from urgent care, and yes it is understood hugely more complex medical practices call for highly skilled specialist teams, but still people do not see a case to close major departments in one of our two major hospitals.
And last word Ms Flemming, people are speaking up, as per Defend Dorset NHS, to protect our NHS. I can’t speak for everyone campaigning but we are surely all on the same side. You are the professionals managing the service, we are the public. We all want the best and in that the right thing is to put plans back to government for an independent review. Not a delaying impediment as you suggest, part of the right due process.
If then referral doesn’t deliver higher funding for full services at both hospitals, as you suggest, commenting other reviews have not been successful for plaintiffs, then it will clearly be a high on manifestos issue for the next election. But then on a positive note the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and Health Secretary, have all said in recent months that higher funding for the NHS is being released. So we don’t know but this might be the turning point with full funding for both our major hospitals. For instance higher revenue rates on fast food, salt/sugar/ transfat saturated food, tobacco, gaming, alcohol industries, would surely square the circle. Job done.
Attached letter in Echo today – a member of Poole hospital staff speaking up against changes. Explaining how they will be affected by upheaval to their lives, children in schools, having to relocate to RBH. You could of course run a poll within the hospital – ask staff what they think. Also attached letter of my own earlier this week. And noted you have asked DDNHS in for meetings, so that I would think is good – shame not done a year or so back.
Yours sincerely,
Jeff Williams
Parkstone
Poole
NB : Poole A&E saved my life last March – burst appendix. I didn’t know that at the time, I self-admitted unable to see a doctor in a week. I was in a bad state – sepsis I believe. I self-admitted because I thought an ambulance might not turn up, I could not say what was wrong, except I felt ghasly – my whole system poisoned. I would never have got to RBH – and likewise so many thousands that look to their local town hospital. Familiarity matters Chief Executive.
And I have to say I was very impressed with all the international staff – and indeed beyond hugely grateful to Poole A&E all staff, doctors, nurses, everyone, for their brilliant care … thank you. As I now know we really have no idea of the value of A&E until we are in dire need ..
