The St Helier Hospital March - 25 November - A Briefing
People may ask what will the march on 25 November achieve?
It is important for a number of reasons:
1. It is vital to express concern about the level of cuts. The more people who attend, the more likely we will force the Trust to be more careful with what they propose. It is vital that staff morale is not damaged by the cuts and a good turn out will strengthen the hand of Unison and other staff reps to get the best possible deal out of the current proposed changes - both financial and structural.
2. It is vital to express concern over the current London Review of A&E services. The more people who attend the more we strengthen St Helier's case. As days go by I am getting more optimistic that we can retain most services at St Helier, however it requires continual vigilence and campaigning to secure the situation. Nevertheless there is still uncertainty over the future of maternity services. At present it is likely the Trust will propose a single St Helier based 3,800-4000 birth a year unit to replace the 1800 birth Epsom and 2600 St Helier unit (see earlier posts on this), though there is still some danger services will migrate to Kingson or Mayday.
3. A strong turn out will emphasise the need for extra investment locally thus helping the PCT's chances of getting funding for the Local Care Hospital at the Shotfield site. The march will keep up the pressure to develop local PCT comissioned community services prior to any other changes to acute services rather than the acute led BHCH. The PCT Turnaround Plan very much reflects this fundamental change in priorities and many of its principles are a step in the right direction.
4. Combined with the emerging local political consensus for the Royal Marsden to expand on the Sutton General site as a National Specialsit Centre instead of a CCH on that site, we start to see a consensus develop for where the main services in Sutton should be sited.
Do not believe that the march will achieve nothing. The fact it happens will force small but important changes on how this area is viewed by the London SHA. As the campaign to stop the sale of SWELEOC showed, we can not only win over a proposed change, but we can actually make a service locally subequently valued by those in authority within the NHS locally.
If the Royal Marsden does expand on the Sutton Hospital site, the irony is we could actually see that health services in Sutton will have in effect increased over the next few years . The theory will then emerge from Epsom that BHCH was just a red herring developed to get Epsom politicians, health professionals and residents to accept the principle of a single principal hospital which then allowed the 2000 "Investing in Excellence" proposals (ie the full internal merger of the Trust with St Helier as the principal hospital) to be implemented. I did warn many times that this was the likely to be the impact on Epsom and argued continually for investment in a two-site solution, rather than just in one. It is sad that some people are having to learn the hard way about this.
Thus the March on Saturday 25 November is part of a wider campaign that defends current services, but could also actually help with Sutton ending up gaining a wider range of services over the medium to long-term. As a result we may well see a retention of most key A&E services at St Helier supported by longer term redevelopment - but only if Sutton residents are seen to shout out loud for it on 25 November!
It is important for a number of reasons:
1. It is vital to express concern about the level of cuts. The more people who attend, the more likely we will force the Trust to be more careful with what they propose. It is vital that staff morale is not damaged by the cuts and a good turn out will strengthen the hand of Unison and other staff reps to get the best possible deal out of the current proposed changes - both financial and structural.
2. It is vital to express concern over the current London Review of A&E services. The more people who attend the more we strengthen St Helier's case. As days go by I am getting more optimistic that we can retain most services at St Helier, however it requires continual vigilence and campaigning to secure the situation. Nevertheless there is still uncertainty over the future of maternity services. At present it is likely the Trust will propose a single St Helier based 3,800-4000 birth a year unit to replace the 1800 birth Epsom and 2600 St Helier unit (see earlier posts on this), though there is still some danger services will migrate to Kingson or Mayday.
3. A strong turn out will emphasise the need for extra investment locally thus helping the PCT's chances of getting funding for the Local Care Hospital at the Shotfield site. The march will keep up the pressure to develop local PCT comissioned community services prior to any other changes to acute services rather than the acute led BHCH. The PCT Turnaround Plan very much reflects this fundamental change in priorities and many of its principles are a step in the right direction.
4. Combined with the emerging local political consensus for the Royal Marsden to expand on the Sutton General site as a National Specialsit Centre instead of a CCH on that site, we start to see a consensus develop for where the main services in Sutton should be sited.
Do not believe that the march will achieve nothing. The fact it happens will force small but important changes on how this area is viewed by the London SHA. As the campaign to stop the sale of SWELEOC showed, we can not only win over a proposed change, but we can actually make a service locally subequently valued by those in authority within the NHS locally.
If the Royal Marsden does expand on the Sutton Hospital site, the irony is we could actually see that health services in Sutton will have in effect increased over the next few years . The theory will then emerge from Epsom that BHCH was just a red herring developed to get Epsom politicians, health professionals and residents to accept the principle of a single principal hospital which then allowed the 2000 "Investing in Excellence" proposals (ie the full internal merger of the Trust with St Helier as the principal hospital) to be implemented. I did warn many times that this was the likely to be the impact on Epsom and argued continually for investment in a two-site solution, rather than just in one. It is sad that some people are having to learn the hard way about this.
Thus the March on Saturday 25 November is part of a wider campaign that defends current services, but could also actually help with Sutton ending up gaining a wider range of services over the medium to long-term. As a result we may well see a retention of most key A&E services at St Helier supported by longer term redevelopment - but only if Sutton residents are seen to shout out loud for it on 25 November!
posted by Charlie Mansell at 7:09 pm
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