Photo shoot Wednesday 20th March midday outside King George Hospital on Barley Lane: Publish the £49M bid KGH A&E document!

BHRUT, the NHS managers responsible for King George and Queens Hospitals, made an unsuccessful bid to the central NHS for £49M for the "Acute Reconfigeration of Queens and King George Hospitals" in autumn 2018.

More on this HERE

An article in the Health Service Journal  has implied that BHRUT is seeking to fund this bid by alternative means see HERE

This matters because "acute reconfigeration" has always meant works to close King George A&E.
We do not know for certain what it is in the bid because we do not know what is in the bid document because it has not been published.

Usually if a £49M bid to "improve" our NHS had been knocked back by central government, our MPs and Cllrs would be making representations upon our behalf for the government to hand over the money. This is not happening as no one knows exactly what the £49M is for.

It must be concern that the £49M is to extend acute capacity at Queens, this means extra beds for emergency admissions.

On the face of it, this sounds a great thing, but the original closure plan implies that while acute capacity is increased at Queens, the overall acute capacity is reduced at the two hospitals.

The photo below is taken from the 2011 plan to close KGH A&E HERE

It shows huge cuts to medical staffing as a consequence of closing KGH A&E. So while, on the face of it, £49M to be spent to our local NHS sounds great, we really need to see the bid document to know what is going on.

My expectation is that the £49M would have/will be spent to help close KGH A&E. However, this is just speculation, we need to see the full bid document so we know what NHS managers intend for our hospitals.

The BHRUT board meet on the 20th at King George at 12:30pm hence the photo shoot before the meeting. We can go into the meeting for 12:30 and request that the bid document is published in full.