Our Hospital – latest news!
This was posted on behalf of Phillip Fowler who is the Chairman of the Friends of Moreton Hospital. It’s long, but please read!
On the evening of 12 June I attended a meeting in Moretonhampstead about the future of the hospital. The North Devon Healthcare Trust (NDHCn and the new Care Commissioners (CCG), who will be responsible for purchasing the hospital services, were present along with Drs. Dudgeon, Wood, Waterfall and Kidner, two patient representatives, George Gribble, Parish Council Chair Ron Jones and myself.
I had hoped that the purpose of the meeting would be to announce a firm date for re opening our inpatient beds, but no date could be given. The reason is that we are still short of a Staff Nurse to complete the nursing team. Apparently, the post has been offered but no start date has been agreed due to the exceedingly long and drawn out procedure when recruiting from one health trust to another. It is hoped that by the end of June a start date will have been agreed and then a re opening date will be announced. The ‘temporary closure’ has already been a lot longer than we were promised.
It seems that nationally there is a desperate shortage of Registered Nurses and this is much worse for Community Hospitals than for the ‘sexy’ Acute hospitals. This is probably made worse by the clear threat to the future of Community Hospitals and the NDHCT is having to run continuous adverts for Registered Nurses to try to attract nursing staff. Obviously if anyone knows a Registered Nurse who lives locally and who fancies a change to a Community Hospital please do get them to contact theNDHCT.
The next issue is the number of beds which Moretonhampstead Hospital will have when it re opens. The NDHCT have now decided to reduce the number from 9 to 6. The reason given is that the Frances Report into the Mid Staffs scandal has recommended a higher nursing staff level. This is not policy yet but in anticipation of this NDHCT say that given the difficulties in getting Registered Nurses only 6 beds will be acceptable. The effect of this will be to make our patient bed costs still higher so putting the budget controlled by the new CCG under pressure not to buy the inpatient beds at Moretonhampstead. The reduction in beds and corresponding high relative cost begins to make permanent closure a self fulfilling prophecy. What is absolutely clear is that the NHS as we know it is in trouble and it has fallen to the new CCGs, run by Doctors, to implement these very tight new budgets. Should it not be central government delivering this news?
The big public meeting on 17th July at 5.30 at the Moretonhampstead Sports Centre is to be chaired by the new CCG who want to gauge the needs of the population in our area. It is not specifically about Moretonhampstead Hospital in patient beds but inevitably as it is a core part of our local health provision it will be discussed. They hope to be able to justify permanent closure of the in patient beds and more ‘at home’ care which should be cheaper. They would offer more clinics at the hospital rather than people having to go to Exeter or other hospitals for treatments. The problem with ‘at home’ care is the lack of Community Nurses at this time. As far as the additional clinics are concerned there is already space that can be utilised in the hospital building for conversion to clinical space.
So at this time it is hoped that by the time we get to the 17th July meeting we will have a re opening date for the in patient beds, but as you can see their future is very much under threat. Please do come to the meeting to have a say in the future of health services in our community.
Phillip Fowler – Chairman, Moretonhampstead Hospital League of Friends
