Fury over hospital plans
CLAIMS THAT CHANGES TO SERVICES ARE A PATH TO CLOSURE
PLANS for the future of hospital services in Sunderland and South Tyneside have been met with anger from campaigners.
Health bosses unveiled proposals for changes to stroke, maternity and children’s services at both hospitals as they launched a public consultation yesterday.
Hospital chiefs say staffing pressures and the need to improve performance mean changes need to be made to what services are provided at South Tyneside District Hospital and Sunderland Royal Hospital.
But campaigners in South Tyneside have branded the proposals a “path to closure” for their hospital and have vowed to fight any plans to “downgrade” the site.
Called ‘The Path to Excellence,’ the consultation will run until October 15 and contains:
l Three options for stroke services, specifically hospital (acute) care and hospital-based rehabilitation services
l Two options for maternity services (obstetrics) and women’s services (gynaecology)
l Two options to improve children and young people’s (paediatrics, urgent and emergency) services.
For stroke services, clinical staff say they prefer ‘option 1,’ which is to combine all hyperacute and acute stroke care at Sunderland Royal Hospital. Patients from both South Tyneside and Sunderland will have their continuing hospital-based rehabilitation at Sunderland Royal Hospital before being discharged to their local community stroke teams.
The trusts for both areas say this option would address staffing concerns and achieve possible savings of £510,000.
For maternity services, ‘option 1’ involves developing a free-standing midwifery-led unit at South Tyneside District Hospital for low risk births, where an estimated 320 women would give birth each year.
Under this proposal, around 460 women from South Tyneside with high-risk pregnancies would give birth at Sunderland Royal Hospital.
A further 520 may choose to give birth at Gateshead or Newcastle and £1.13 million savings would be achieved.
The second option would see around 780 South Tyneside women give birth at Sunderland Royal Hospital and 520 may choose to give birth at Gateshead or Newcastle. This would achieve £1.16m savings but require an investment of around £300,000 to increase space.
This would save £220,000 and mean 6,600 patients from South Tyneside needing specialist treatment would be treated at Sunderland Royal Hospital each year with approximately 700 of those treated at Gateshead or Newcastle.
Dr Shaz Wahid, medical director for South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust, said the consultation provides the opportunity to make “big improvements” to hospital services and patient care.
He said: “We want to explain the current challenges we have around how these services are being delivered at the moment, and present some proposals on the different ways our clinical teams think some services could be delivered in the future.”
But campaigners in South Tyneside have branded the exercise a “path to closure” of services at South Tyneside Hospital, and organised a protest outside Jarrow Community Centre as the consultation launched.
Roger Nettleship, chair of Save South Tyneside Hospital, said: “This will not be a path to excellence but a path to worse health outcomes in an area which is one of the poorest areas in the North East.”