A doctor leading the healthcare review threatening St Helier Hospital has sent out a defiant message stating they will not go away without major service change.
Joint medical director of the Better Services Better Value (BSBV) healthcare review, Dr David Finch, a Wandsworth GP, has issued a statement outlining the problems BSBV is trying to resolve.
He begins by talking about how none of the region’s five hospitals are currently meeting the new London Quality Standards, measuring acute care in the capital, and goes on to discuss the aging population.
He said: "Our services are not set up to serve the needs of our population. We have an ageing population in which more and more people are living with long term conditions. The best way to treat these people is in services based in the community, rather than in hospital.
“The NHS has for some years been trying to deliver better out of hospital services, but it cannot easily do so when so much of its budget is tied up in hospitals – there’s only one pot of money and we need to spend more of it on community-based services.”
It is unclear when the review, which has been delayed on numerous occasions since May 2011, will go to public consultation as NHS England is still seeking assurance from GPs in Surrey.
BSBV are expected to consult on three options and their “preferred option” is St Helier Hospital becoming the most severely downgraded in the region, a local hospital, losing its accident and emergency and maternity department.
Dr Finch added: “If people think there is another way of addressing all these challenges, the consultation will be your chance to put it forward, or to suggest amendments to the current proposals.
“You may have good reasons to oppose one or more of the options put forward, but this would be much more effective if you proposed an alternative – because at the end of the day, the local NHS will need to address these problems. We want to talk to people about how we do that.”
To read his statement in full visit the BSBV website.
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