‘Care review must be open and honest’

THE clinical commissioning groups (CCGS) have now gone out to consultation over the closure of community hospitals, including our modern, purpose-built hospital in Cheadle.

The facilities and care patients received at Cheadle were second to none. Three of our wards closed, supposedly temporarily, in 2016 and people have been thrown back into the community from the overcrowded Royal Stoke University Hospital. Poorly, frightened, vulnerable and worried people sent home with inadequate or nonexistent care. Our district nurses are pleading they’re at breaking point and can no longer cope.

The NHS used to be the pride of Britain, but now it is closing community hospitals without completing local research and without providing adequate community care because Royal Stoke is overcrowded. Many elderly patients have numerous health problems, but the liaison between departments is fragmented because of the constraints on staff time.

People living in rural areas suffer with travel issues, as bus routes diminish further and further each year. Once there, patients find the car parks are completely full.

In some cases, elderly patients are being discharged to care homes which are scary places for many. But here in Cheadle we only have one small care home – so places are at a premium.

I’m told by health workers that managers do what Government directs. The only people suffering are patients and front-line staff. The NHS is a vote catcher, but our area has been downgraded more with the Tories than anyone else.

We need a total review, open and honest, with people sending in their experiences to a Government audit department after which managers are held to account, not being made to follow a ‘one size fits all’ method.

CCG boss Marcus Warnes told staff at Cheadle in 2016 that the site would be offered for sale for alternative uses. Despite the fact that taxpayers’ money has been spent on providing the modern, purpose-built building.

I am so angry about our loss of beds and the subsequent sale. I started the Save our Beds campaign, and everything we did to stop this has been totally ignored. JULIE BULL CHEADLE DISTRICT AND TOWN COUNCILLOR