In August we learned that yet again the NHS is to undergo more restructuring. Elmbridge Borough Council were given just one month - during August - to comment on the discussion paper received from the Surrey & Sussex Strategic Health Authority (to which the local Primary Care Trusts are responsible). From April 2006 there will be a new Primary Care Trust responsible for providing NHS services to residents in this area.
The Threats: This new restructuring follows the introduction of Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) less than four years ago - in 2002. Under that arrangement this area became the responsibility of East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey (EEMS) PCT and the promised 14 NHS rehabilitation beds at Thames Ditton Community Hospital, which are provided in Emberbrook Care Centre, became reduced to four - and would now be none, if it had not been for the support of our MP Ian Taylor, local County and Borough Councillors and Surrey County Council's Health Select Committee. As a result EEMS PCT was forced to agree to consult on their proposals to close all the beds and have had to accept that there is overwhelming opposition to their plans. But with EEMS PCT having received no stars in the latest round of assessments, and their worsening financial situation, there has been no final decision about the future of the beds.
Thames Ditton Hospital, with its 14 inpatient beds and the out patient services provided at the Emberbrook Health Centre next door, are not alone in being under threat from NHS cuts. Many will be aware of the current situation at Weybridge Hospital, where 18 beds for rehabilitation, respite and palliative care are under threat. Unfortunately we cannot be sure that other community hospitals in our area will not also be under threat in the not so distant future - it often seems that the NHS considers locally based health services an easy target.
It is not only in-patient services which are being cut. Without consultation, outpatient services provided at Emberbrook Health Centre (which were already far more limited than had been promised several years ago) have, in the last 12 months, also been either cut or much reduced; these include physiotherapy, audiology, chiropody/podiatry, ophthalmology, antenatal classes (evening classes cut) and consultants' clinics. Teenage Advisory Clinics in Molesey have been transferred to Epsom, as have many other services. Other services have been moved to Leatherhead and Kingston. All of these locations are difficult for patients to reach. Kingston has severe parking problems, the other locations are difficult to get to by public transport. Many of the patients will be working parents with young children or relatively infirm elderly patients many of whom are not able to drive.
An opportunity? If this loss of local health services is to be halted and reversed, it is essential that we stay alert and become involved. While saving costs, rather than patients' needs, is the main reason for this round of changes in the NHS structure the resulting changes may offer a better opportunity for local concerns to be recognised. At present there are 5 Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) covering the whole of Surrey and its borders. From next year it is anticipated that there will only be two. With only one PCT to deal with instead of the present two (East Elmbridge & Mid Surrey PCT and North Surrey PCT), Elmbridge Council see this as a positive development. But there is another positive aspect: because the PCTs would cover a much larger area the proposals include the possibility for a layer of local based management with their own, locally devolved, budgets. In this area, the local management would cover the whole of Elmbridge which includes five local community hospitals and health centres: Walton, Weybridge, Cobham, Molesey and Thames Ditton. Most of us are more affected by the standard of our locally based health services (be it GP and rehabilitation beds, physiotherapy, hearing tests, podiatry, check ups and treatment for most chronic conditions etc) than by almost any other part of the health service.
To make the most of the opportunity which these changes in the NHS bring, we need to make sure our needs and concerns are heard. Do we want our non-acute and most frequently used health services to be relocated further from home to locations to which it is difficult to travel? It is unacceptable that the most vulnerable members of our society will be required to travel long distances to receive basic care or visit sick relatives and friends.
We need to continue to press for local health services which are indeed 'closer to home', as promised by EEMS PCT last year. This means continuing to put pressure on the NHS to fulfil its promises to provide the inpatient and outpatient services where we need them - locally in our newly built hospital and health centre at Giggs Hill Green.
Karen Randolph
Chairman,
Friends of Thames Ditton Hospital.
Tel: 020 8398 5005
Email: Karen@randolph-watson.co.uk