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Whitby Hospital non-viable if more cuts happen' - HAVE YOUR SAY
WHITBY and Esk Valley doctors have serious concerns about the future for Whitby Hospital.
We, the doctors of Whitby and the Esk Valley have serious concerns about the immediate and long-term future for Whitby Hospital.
For more than two years we have sought clarification from both the PCT and Acute Trusts regarding their medium to long-term plans for Whitby Hospital and a halt to the constant low grade running down of hospital based services.
We have been very disappointed by the lack of a response from North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT), now also known as NHS North Yorkshire and York.
Many services have already been reduced, such as the recent loss of Spinnaker Lodge, Maternity and a reduction in Day Hospital activity.
We feel that any further cuts will make the hospital non-viable in the long term.
This will deprive our patients of access to local healthcare and cause further redundancies in Whitby.
The recent press releases from the PCT informing us of the loss of night-time cover on the Minor Injuries Unit (MIU) and closure of the operating theatre for endoscopies and General Anaesthetics, approximately 90% of theatre workload, is a very worrying development.
Furthermore, we have been informed of a plan to reduce doctor input into MIU to just one hour per day, Monday to Friday, by Janet Probert, Managing Director, Community and Mental Health. MIU sees approximately 9,500 patients a year from Whitby and the surrounding area.
The new GP contract in 2004 took responsibility for 'Out Of Hours' medical provision away from local GPs and it became the responsibility of the PCT to provide medical cover.
In an attempt to protect the local hospital and community and to provide some degree of continuity of care, EskDOC was formed by the local GP practices to provide GP care and MIU cover from 1800 until 2300, Monday to Friday and hospital inpatient cover at the weekends and bank holidays.
This is in addition to our full-time general practice commitments.
The proposed changes to medical staffing will make it extremely difficult to continue providing EskDOC cover.
The inevitable consequences will be that more emergency and urgent cases will be transferred to Scarborough General Hospital, a hospital already under critical strain.
Given the limited public transport provision it will, in our opinion, also impact upon the ambulance service, probably resulting in some patients from the local community having reduced access to the urgent medical care they have come to expect over many years.
With effect from 1 April 2010 the MIU at Whitby Hospital will no longer be manned by nursing staff from 2300 until 0800 seven days a week.
The doors will be closed and locked and any clinical contact needed will be by phone with clinical care being based in Pickering.
The PCT has described this change as temporary but not made any promises regarding when the service would resume.
The PCT has been aware of the staffing problem for over one year.
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We fear it may never resume.
In addition, the operating theatre at Whitby is to close to all but a very small proportion of its work from 1 April 2010.
This will result in a further loss of 10 beds on War Memorial ward.
A decision on the impact on theatre attached nursing and support staff has yet to be clarified but temporarily they will be asked to work in Malton Hospital which is not being threatened with any cutbacks.
The reason for closure of theatre is given as problems with the ventilation system which the PCT were made aware of in a report originally prepared in September 2008.
We feel aggrieved that they have taken so long to address the problem.
Whilst again they state this is a temporary closure, the PCT is not making any commitment to carrying out the necessary repairs, nor offering any dates when that decision will be made.
There is very limited capacity in Scarborough Hospital to provide these lost services.
We are so concerned with the lack of coherent planning and the running down of local services at Whitby Hospital that we met with Mr Robert Goodwill, our local MP, about these problems on 29 January at Spring Vale Medical Centre.
His response was to write to the PCT Chief Executive, Jayne Brown, about these matters on 2 February.
We have not received any further information from Mr Goodwill or Ms Brown.
This sequence of closures follows just over a week from the meeting at the Whitby Coliseum Question Time.
At that meeting Simon Cox from the PCT said at the public meeting there is no plan to reduce the current services in Whitby Hospital.
In our opinion, these major changes in local medical provision will have a profound, damaging and long lasting impact on health care provision for this isolated community.
From: All the doctors from: Churchfield Surgery, Danby Surgery, Egton Surgery, Sandsend Surgery, Staithes Surgery, Whitby Group Practice
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Weather for Scarborough
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 9 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
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