Tony Dobson

Hyndburn Conservative group leader

I RECENTLY met with Mr Kevin McGee, chief executive of East Lancashire hospitals trust who are responsible for healthcare at Royal Blackburn, Clitheroe and Accrington Victoria Hospitals to name a couple.

I wanted to meet with him just to express my concerns and vision for Accrington Victoria Hospital and how I believe that this site could be a tremendous asset to the Pennine Lancashire trust and take pressure away from Royal Blackburn and in particular accident and emergency.

I was extremely pleased to find that Mr McGee and myself are singing off the same hymn sheet, he recognises the historic value of Accrington Victoria Hospital to the people of Hyndburn and also recognises that if we are to improve healthcare provision in Hyndburn, centres like this are absolutely important and should be places where service provision is expanded not reduced, so that venues like Royal Blackburn are dedicated to those who are seriously ill and in need of extreme care.

One major concern for Mr McGee is that he is trying to provide 21st-century healthcare in a Victorian building and the two didn’t naturally sit well together. He did express his concerns around building maintenance and how the building can affect patient care.

It may be necessary in getting a centre of excellence that we may need to be open-minded about reshaping Victoria hospital, so that it is the first point of call for the majority of minor injury patients.

We also chatted about how different public sectors and agencies need to come together to help with social care and confirmed a startling fact to me, that between 30 and 50 per cent of patients in Royal Blackburn are either fit to go home or unable to receive any further medical attention but can’t be released because the social care in our community is not acceptable.

We agreed there is a major role for housing associations, care providers, Lancashire County Council and the borough council to step up to the plate and to pro-actively solve this issue as quickly as possible.

It was also good to hear Mr McGee‘s thoughts about an enhanced minor injuries department.

He confirmed that by July 2018 there would be more doctors and nurses based at Accrington Victoria hospital’s minor injuries department to help reduce the dependency on Royal Blackburn accident and emergency but also to bring more services local to residents.

I was totally reassured that the vision I have for health and social care in Hyndburn is mirrored by the East Lancashire Hospital trust chief executive and we both agree that the Accrington Victoria Hospital site has a great future in providing modern and holistic Health care for the people of Hyndburn.