NHS under pressure to get public involved in south Warwickshire hospital bed review
HEALTH bosses in Warwickshire are under mounting pressure to allow the public to have their say over controversial plans to rebuild the Ellen Badger Hospital in Shipston without any beds.
Councillors from across the political spectrum have joined forces to demand that a 12-week public consultation exercise is conducted to find out what people think of the proposals.
Members of a watchdog committee at Warwickshire County Council have already put in a formal request for the consultation to take place. And on Monday (10th July) Stratford District Council will be asked at its full meeting to do the same.
The moves follow the disclosure by South Warwickshire University NHS Foundation Trust (SWFT) that the 16 inpatient beds at Ellen Badger will not be included in the new building currently under construction in Shipston and that no extra beds will be created in Stratford.
Instead SWFT has said it would increase community hospital beds from 35 to 41 with Leamington Hospital getting the extra beds. It would mean that people would have to travel to Leamington to access health care facilities previously available in Shipston.
The proposal – which has caused uproar – is contained in a beds review undertaken by SWFT. The review has not yet been published, so people are in the dark about why the recommendation was made.
However, the review and its findings are due to be presented for approval at the meeting of the NHS Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) at its meeting on 19th July, at which point the document is expected to be made public.
It is this body – the ICB – that is being targeted by councillors anxious for the Ellen Badger decision to be put to the public. They want the ICB to initiate a consultation process instead of rubber-stamping the SWFT proposals.
Last week the county council’s adult social care and health overview and scrutiny committee decided to call for the consultation at the suggestion of one of its members, Cllr Kate Rolfe (Lib Dem, Stratford South). Cllr Rolfe’s proposal was seconded by Cllr Jo Barker (Con, Shipston), the committee chair.
Meanwhile Stratford district councillor Manuela Perteghella (Lib Dem, Welford), seconded by Cllr Dave Passingham (Green, Shipston South), has put down a motion calling on SDC to back the calls for public consultation.
Cllr Perteghella says there is “considerable public upset” over the plans by SWFT, and in her motion states:
- That the council is opposed to the removal of inpatient community hospital beds at Ellen Badger, and considers that the local community care setting, care homes and healthcare services will be reliant on an adequately staffed local community hospital with inpatient needs
- That the loss of inpatient beds will only lead to greater “bed blocking” of acute beds leading, in turn, to longer stays in hospital than necessary, and greater costs accrued by SWFT. It will also add pressure on the community beds in Stratford Hospital
- The council expresses its support for a policy that retains the medical facilities, including inpatient beds in Shipston, and keeps these facilities in locations that are convenient for access by residents and also relieving pressure on acute beds elsewhere, minimising delayed transfer of care situations
Cllr Perteghella’s motion also says that if there is a subsequent decision to close the inpatient facilities at Ellen Badger, following the public consultation, the matter should be referred to the Health Secretary for consideration.
At last week’s meeting of the county council’s overview and scrutiny committee, SWFT chief executive Glen Burley raised eyebrows when he told members that – according to modelling – only 17 people from the Shipston area required community beds in the last financial year compared with 313 from Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth, arguing the new plan amounted to “an appropriate, safe recommendation”.
Mr Burley, who’d been invited by the committee to explain the plan, described himself as a “huge fan” of Ellen Badger Hospital, and stated that he hadn’t given up on relocating GP services to the redeveloped site and insisted that having no inpatient beds “does not mean the hospital will not continue to be busy and supportive of the community”.
The GP surgery in Shipston has been faltering on moving onto the Ellen Badger site because of the increasing costs involved.
Mr Burley added: “The small number of people who need access to community hospital beds is significantly dwarfed by the number of people who will use that service moving forward, and we will enhance the service offer.
“Our plans have to consider the entire south Warwickshire population and the needs of our community, hence the two locations [Stratford and Leamington hospitals] that we think are best suited to that.”
This week John Lister, a former associate senior lecturer in health policy at Coventry University, told the Herald that the people most likely to need beds at the Ellen Badger Hospital would be elderly, with relatives who were also elderly.
He said that in rural areas it would be a nightmare for them to have to travel further afield, particularly if they didn’t have cars.
“There’s a lot of rhetoric in the NHS about keeping nursing close to home,” he said. “In this case it appears to be working in the opposite direction.”
And he added: “I’ve yet to see an example of a community hospital [losing its beds] with any benefit to anyone.”
Yesterday (Wednesday) Dr Kirsten Protherough, a Worcestershire-based GP who is the incoming chair of the Community Hospital Association, told the Herald that after attending a meeting in Shipston last September it was clear how important the Ellen Badger Hospital was to the local community.
She said: “As seen in Shipston the goodwill towards a community hospital from the staff – who often live locally – and the local community is immeasurable but has huge benefits to patient care and staff satisfaction.
“In some areas of the UK, with similarly ageing populations to Shipston-on-Stour, the loss of inpatient beds has been detrimental to the local population and community, for example in Devon and Cornwall.
“Whilst we recognise that treatment at home is theoretically the preferable option for patients living with frailty it is often not possible to achieve and the ongoing closure of community hospital beds within the UK is contributing to conditions where accident and emergency departments cannot cope.
“Elderly patients are waiting on trolleys in corridors and outside in ambulances with conditions such as urinary tract infections, chest infections and symptoms associated with dementia. These conditions could be treated more appropriately within a community hospital setting with reablement facilities.”
One question that kept being asked this week was: If the community hospital at Moreton-in-Marsh can have beds, why can’t the Ellen Badger at Shipston?
