SOS Grantham Hospital Chair and District Councillor Chair Charmaine Morgan has been advised that the forthcoming Sustainable Transformation Plan for Lincolnshire, due to be released on Tuesday 5 March, will contain significant changes relating to Grantham and District General Hospital and its Accident and Emergency Department.
She broke the news to councillors at South Kesteven District full council on Friday 1 March 2019.
The hospital, currently run by United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust, is at least 28 miles from the next nearest Accident and Emergency Departments located at Nottingham, Lincoln, Leicester and Peterborough and is conveniently located on the A1.
The future of GDH A&E unit came under the microscope as a result of the Conservative Government’s plans to centralise all A&E units nationally.
More than 60 hospitals and Maternity Units have been affected by these plans.
Councillor Morgan said: “The changes announced will affect the nature of Grantham Hospital A&E which will no longer receive the most severely ill patients.
“Grantham A&E is to become an Urgent Care Centre.
Crucially patient resuscitation and stabilisation, the treatment that is so needed in an area at least an hours drive to the next nearest A&E, will cease.
“Orthopaedic emergencies will also go.
“Patients suffering from a suspected heart attack will be referred to Lincoln County Hospital A&E which is already failing to meet its 4hrly targets on a regular basis.
“The proposals will go to Public Consultation later this year but show that we have been let down by ALL involved from the Hospital Trust to the NHS and Health Minister.
“It is clear that as a result of these changes people will die. The maximum time that life can be sustained by a paramedic ambulance team is approximately 20 minutes. The time it will take to reach an alternative hospital with an A&E unit will be at least 20 minutes beyond that and potentially, depending on traffic and road conditions, much longer.
“The voices of 60,000 petitioners, our MP, local councillors and campaigners have been ignored. Boston patients will also be affected. Two wrongs do not make a right.
“We will fight these changes and call upon the Council to do whatever it can to help protect our community. We are literally fighting for people’s lives.”
Councillor Morgan (Lab) went on to say: “Until the Coalition Government there was a democratic say for local people in their hospital services. The Health Minister could be held to account and the Primary Care Trust comprised both medical professionals and locally elected council members.
“Under Jeremy Hunt’s Health and Social Care Act 2013 the PCTs were replaced by Hospital Trusts who are unelected, highly paid quangos only answerable to unelected NHS England officials and the Health Minister. The Health and Social Care Act also introduced the Sustainability Transformation Plans that have led to the hollowing out of vital hospital services in rural areas across the country. It is quite outrageous that we are denied a real say in a service that we all use and pay for.
“The impact of the changes are already affecting local people. We are seeing increasing waiting times for emergency ambulances and increasing waiting times at the nearest A&E units. A few weeks ago my husband was injured at work.
“We checked and in theory the shortest waiting time was at Nottingham QMC. He had to wait 7.5 hours to be seen. Nottingham QMC was on black alert. More recently a resident’s daughter hurt her ankle. Her parents drove her to Lincoln County A&E. They had to wait 5 hours for her to be seen.
She said the centralisation plans are putting more and more pressure on the remaining hospitals and it is a plan that is designed to fail. Contrary to comments made by United Lincolnshire Hospital Trust, and other parties, there is clear evidence that GDH A&E handled a full range of emergency patients with only a few exceptions when it was closed at night.
She continued: “We will be demanding that those responsible for the changes confirm how many of the types of treatment and what severity will be handled at Grantham’s new Urgent Care Centre. Many of the conditions are time critical, including strokes, sepsis, choking and severe allergies. We have local people with brain trauma reliant on nearby emergency care to ensure they survive a fitting episode.
“Whilst ULHT has been promoting its new heart surgery facilities at Lincoln Hospital the majority of emergency cases do not fall into this category. Of particular concern is the wellbeing of our children. The Clinical Commissioning Group oversaw the closure of our Maternity Unit and reduced local paediatric services.
“We are expected to travel to Pilgrim Hospital with sick children yet the services at Boston Pilgrim are also under threat.
“Under the NHS Principals they have a duty of care to meet the needs of all in the community. These plans fail to do that. The most vulnerable people, especially those without a car, single parents, children, those unable to drive and anyone with a serious chronic condition has been placed more at risk or significant disadvantage by the recent changes and those planned.
“Grantham is earmarked as a Growth Town. Not only have 3700 more homes and capacity for 4000 workers recently been approved by South Kesteven District Hospital, but millions of visitors are expected to visit the new out of town retail parks.
“It is staggering that as our town grows our hospital services are lost. Those living outside Lincolnshire but dependent upon GDH will be equally affected, such as Newark and Melton Mowbray.
“It seems there is little or no consideration of the impact on them.”
A full analysis of the STP will take place by SOS Grantham Hospital when it is properly launched but given this news it is unlikely to be well received.
Has the same effect of issuing death sentences out to anyone who just happens to be unfortunate enough to be in need of attention.
Trust politicians and governments at your peril, this just proves it
God help us all.
As an afterthought to this it will be comforting to know that those who make these changes will have to live ( or die) by them, having said that they proberbly have enough finance to go “ private”
That’s were the NHS is heading I believe, what was once they envy of the world is a shadow of its former self all down to Goverment intervening and miss management by those at the very top.