Dear
Councillors
Walk
from King George Hospital to save King George A&E/Don't overload
Queens meeting at Redbridge Town Hall on 30th March at
3pm.
I
write to promote the above event in a personal capacity and so the
argument I make should not be taken to have the support of Keith
Prince AM, Councillor
Nic Dodin or Bob Archer,the Secretary of
Redbridge Trades Council who are among the speakers on the day.
NHS
managers gave us a promise back in October 2017 that the closure of
King George A&E would be reviewed. The statement containing the
promise, available on the BHRUT website is copied below.
“I
wanted to update you on the latest position regarding the A&E
department at King George Hospital in Goodmayes. As you will know,
the decision to replace the A&E with an Urgent Care Centre (UCC)
was taken in 2011 and much has changed since then. Our east London
population is growing and ageing, demand for NHS services continues
to increase, and we face ever-increasing challenges as a healthcare
system. Following on from the recommendations in a strategic review
undertaken recently by PWC, we now need to consider more options
for the way we deliver urgent and emergency care across our
communities. This will allow us to look at how this care is provided
locally, taking these challenges into account. It is important we
consider how we deliver these services across both King George and
Queen’s hospitals to enable us to deliver care in the best way for
patients. Exploring more options will enable us to do this.
This is now an opportunity for us to work with our clinicians,
patients, partners and stakeholders to develop a plan to make it
easier for people to access the right services, deliver care
sustainably, and address the challenges such as an ageing population
and increasing demand on A&E services. The model we finally adopt
must provide excellent, safe patient care and meet the needs of local
people now and well into the future. In the meantime, the existing
A&E at King George hospital will continue to operate as now. I
will continue to keep you updated of further developments. “ (my
emphasis)
I
can find no evidence that this review is taking place. I cannot find
a schedule providing a timetable for the process of the review, what
options are being considered and how clinicians, patients,
partners and stakeholders are to feed their views into the review
of the closure.
To
my knowledge, local councils have not been asked to contribute to the
promised review, nor have there been/ are any public meetings
planned, to consult with the public about the options to be
considered and explored.
Instead
of promised review we have seen the publication of the NHS Estates
Strategy Plan available http://eastlondonhcp.nhs.uk/our-work/estates/
in October 2018. This Estates Strategy Plan is also a long term
clinical plan for health care in East London. The plan does not see a
future for A&E at King George, instead the focus is on King
George becoming a centre of excellence for the elderly.
Closing
the Cedar Ward at King George is part of the Estates Strategy plan,
so this plan is already shaping health care now.
Another
step towards implementing the Estates Strategy plan is the decision
of BHRUT to restrict ambulatory care to the frail
elderly at King George per the following quote.
“Due
to the low levels of admitted adult patients from the Emergency
Department at King George Hospital, a full ambulatory care unit is
not required and we do not believe it would be the best use of our
resources.
“It
is more effective to centralise this service at Queen’s Hospital.
“Any
increase in admissions or ambulatory support is monitored daily.
“However,
due to the levels of demand from our frail elderly patients, we do
offer a dedicated ambulatory care service for these patients at King
George Hospital.” (Recorder 14.10.18)
Redbridge
Clinical Commissioning board papers from September 2018 say at page
31
“Changes
to King Georges site” are a priority My view is that these
“priority” changes at King George are taking place, but without
proper public scrutiny.
The
same board papers outline the refusal to provide ambulatory care at
King George.
Earlier
this month a resident pointed out to me that King George Hospital
provides ambulatory care per the photo below:
It
strikes me that BHRUT is behaving unlawfully here by discriminating
against patients who require ambulatory care (with the exception of
the frail elderly) by turning them away for no good reason.
I
have asked BHRUT for their equality impact assessment for their
decision to deny care for the patients in question at King George on
the 23rd November. As yet BHRUT have not provided their
assessment.
These
reductions at service and the consequent overloading of Queens along
with the broken promise to review the closure of King George are why
I hope you will support the above event.
A
copy if this email has been sent to BHRUT for any comments they may
have.
Regards
Andy
Walker
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