Further blow for St Helier Hospital in its battle to retain vital services

10:39am Thursday 31st May 2012 in Save St Helier By Sophia Sleigh, Reporter

St Helier has suffered a further blow St Helier has suffered a further blow

St Helier Hospital faced another blow this week when a financial appraisal put it head-to-head with Croydon University Hospital to lose its A&E and maternity services.

On Monday the programme board of the Better Services Better Value review concluded that Kingston Hospital is not an option to lose its Accident and Emergency and maternity departments.

St Helier Hospital was recommended by a non-financial scoring panel early in May as the hospital in SW London which should lose the vital services.

The material will be presented in a business case to be considered by the joint boards of SW London Primary Care Trusts in July - a delay on previous indications which stated it would be made on June 7.

The reasons given for the delay are that further work needs to be done on the two options - St Helier or Croydon University Hospital which passed the financial appraisal.

Work on an impact assessment is underway and it is expected that by the end of July, they should be clear on what they are going to consult the public on.

The programme Board also accepted the recommendation that children's wards at three SW London hospitals close and a specialist inpatient childrens’ ward should be at St George’s Hospital in Tooting.

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When asked for reassurances about the £219m promised to St Helier Hospital’s redevelopment a spokesperson for NHS London said: "There is a firm commitment to redevelop the St Helier site.

"We need further clarity on the outcome of the Better Services Better Value review before a decision can be made on the next steps.

"We are working with the trust and with commissioners in South West London to ensure this happens as soon as possible, but this will not be before the end of May."

The hospital which loses its A&E and maternity will hold a new planned surgery centre and a "range of other services".

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Comments(24)

Michael Pantlin says...
5:09pm Thu 31 May 12

The Travel Miles to Join a Queue at Another Hospital Panel are just implementing the bad solution dictated by the mysterious SWL Body. The pressure has come from the Jim Hacker MP politicians and their Department of Health Sir Humphrey at the top. The whole
planned sequence of events is a fix as the BVBS Panel will shortly be disbanded as will the PCT which will rubber stamp it after consultation. Don't forget the St. Helier Hospital Pathology
Service has suddenly been added to the cuts so specimens will have to go through the traffic to join the queue at St. George's Tooting adding to the delay. Remember it's the politicians who have put OUR hospital into this mess and they are quite capable of extricating it with a spun justification if the local population convinces them how angry they are about running down an excellent District General Hospital that meets most of the needs of the population it serves. Sutton & Carshalton people are not second class citizens in the NHS.

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Danny Bhoy says...
9:49pm Thu 31 May 12

As I keep saying I was against the changes to stroke and trauma when they centralised things at St George's but I was proved wrong. London's survival rates rocketed when they made those changes. It's all very well having a hospital on your doorstep but if I have to travel a couple of miles to get a better chance of staying alive, I'm travelling.

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Michael Pantlin says...
5:08am Fri 1 Jun 12

About time our St. Helier Hospital stopped receiving these "blows" and about time the many patients who do value it delivered a few blows back at the forces that are destroying it bit by bit. I took some petition forms to my lunch club and all except two were eager to sign and cross at what is happening.
People never fail to amaze me. Of the two who refused in an ungracious way one didn't like one of the politicians instigating the petition and the other reported one bad experience a while ago. What reasons for allowing the destruction of a whole District General Hospital that has served the community so well for 80 years. These same people who refused were on crutches so they will need some wheels to get to Tooting.
I lived by the hospital in Tooting from 1948-1988 and that area does not deserve any better hospital facilities than the people of Carshalton & Sutton.

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Michael Pantlin says...
5:16am Fri 1 Jun 12

I walked Tom Brake MP's petition around the lunch club I attend and no one needed any persuading to sign apart from two who refused rather ungraciously; one because they didn't like one of the MPs associated with the petition and the other because they once had a "bad experience". Time now for our St. Helier Hospital to stop receiving these weekly orchestrated "blows" and for the vast majority of users who do value the service it provides to start delivering a few blows back at those who would close it. I lived a few hundred yards from St. George's Hospital fro 1948-88 and know that those who think congestion and parking around St. Helier Hospital is unsatisfactory for them will not want to know about Tooting.

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Danny Bhoy says...
7:42pm Fri 1 Jun 12

I hope Mr Brake's petition includes a paragraph about how the local NHS is going to meet the clinical standards expected of them in A and E and maternity without making the changes doctors are recommending. Current services are not safe and cost lives.
People should read the reports and stop this tiresome sloganising.

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Michael Pantlin says...
2:33am Sat 2 Jun 12

I speak from 11 years experience and 35 life saving hospital admissions at St. Helier District General Hospital not sloganising. I've always felt safe there and they've always provided me with a good discharge through the front door. If is isn't broke don't send people miles away to an already busy hospital. I don't know what other people's vested interests are - mine is staying alive. St. Helier does not deserve to be closed over any other hospital. As I've said before.

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Danny Bhoy says...
8:16am Sat 2 Jun 12

My only interest is staying alive. The point is that if you read the doctors' reports they show that services across this area of London are not meeting the standards required and the whole system will fall over without change. If you had a stroke or a serious car accident tomorrow you would be taken to St George's not St Helier. You would travel further but be much more
Likely to live because you would be going to a specialist unit. I was against those changes but the results have convinced me that putting more specialists in one unit is the way forward.

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Danny Bhoy says...
8:17am Sat 2 Jun 12

My only interest is staying alive. The point is that if you read the doctors' reports they show that services across this area of London are not meeting the standards required and the whole system will fall over without change. If you had a stroke or a serious car accident tomorrow you would be taken to St George's not St Helier. You would travel further but be much more
Likely to live because you would be going to a specialist unit. I was against those changes but the results have convinced me that putting more specialists in one unit is the way forward.

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Danny Bhoy says...
8:19am Sat 2 Jun 12

Plus I don't think they are proposing to close St Helier, are they? They are talking about moving maternity and A and E but there will be other services here. Unless I have read incorrectly, the plan is to keep all four hospitals.

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badfurday says...
10:50am Sat 2 Jun 12

Danny Bhoy makes valid points. If you are in a life threatening condition, the ambulance will take you straight to St Georges, St Helier simply does not have the facilities to deal with high end trauma. In the same way Epsom A+E was downgraded a few years ago, no one will really notice and it will carry on the same. If anything, A+E at Epsom see patients quicker due to not having patients waiting because a blue light has just come in. Its time to see the bigger picture. St Helier will become a non emergency hospital, much like Epsom. Think of it like a hub and spoke set up. One world class hospital able to deal with all sorts of trauma, with other Hospitals taking on non emergency, but still important healthcare issues. This doesn't mean the care will change, if anything it will be an improvement.

The community is spoilt for choice when it comes to Hospitals. Look at somewhere like Cambridgeshire, they have one world class hospital, that serves communities from miles around.

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Michael Pantlin says...
12:25pm Sat 2 Jun 12

Danny Bhoy wrote:
Plus I don't think they are proposing to close St Helier, are they? They are talking about moving maternity and A and E but there will be other services here. Unless I have read incorrectly, the plan is to keep all four hospitals.
Currently earmarked in the St. Helier closure process are A&E adult Major, Queen Mary's at St. Helier childrens wards and childrens' A&E, Maternity and most Pathology. Reduction in admissions through diverted A&E will open the way to close some wards. Ferguson House already earmarked for destruction with the money earmarked for building to replace it not allocated to specific purposes until they've finally got the rubber stamp for their closure programme from authorities that are shortly to shut down themselves. At the moment what's fairly certain to be left is a refurbished staff creche, a minor injury unit, a waiting list surgical suite

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Michael Pantlin says...
12:28pm Sat 2 Jun 12

And the already private Aramark "World Class" catering firm that gives you soup and sandwiches instead of a proper evening meal. If you want a yoghurt or jelly then you have to forgo the soup or sandwich, only two out of three allowed.

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Danny Bhoy says...
12:49pm Sat 2 Jun 12

Isn't it set to be the site for all planned operations in the area? Whatever hospital loses its A & E meant to get the planned surgery model. Most of us more likely to need that than A&E.

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Danny Bhoy says...
12:53pm Sat 2 Jun 12

Badfurday puts it eloquently. A hub and spoke model. People
don't seem to realise that major trauma and stroke are already treated that way and it's been a big success. If you really need emergency help it is better to be in the place with the right people and equipment, which St George's has.

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Michael Pantlin says...
7:09am Sun 3 Jun 12

Concentrating so much at distant Tooting is putting too many eggs in one basket. Apart from the unanswered questions how the already stretched St. George's Hospital could pick up the workload being transferred from Carshalton, Sutton, Croydon and Kingston and the exacerbation of the existing congestion there will inevitably be times when there will be incidents which temporarily shut the hospital for a period and then folk will be looking to St. Thomas's and Kings College.
There will then be plenty of hubs and spokes on all the wheels required to shunt people across London. Too many eggs in one basket reducing resilience, to much congestion, too much extra work transferred to a finite site and facilities, too much extra work added to a London Ambulance Service that itself is being cut back.

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Danny Bhoy says...
6:40pm Sun 3 Jun 12

But this is exactly what people said, including me, about stroke and trauma. We were wrong. Actually it is not about eggs in baskets, it is about having the required number of consultants on a ward in A&E and maternity. The NHS in our area of London isn't doing this and it means lives are being put at risk. People need to read the reports and listen to what local doctors are telling them. Doctors don't want to change things without good reason.

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Michael Pantlin says...
11:03am Mon 4 Jun 12

It precisely is about eggs in baskets and lack of resilience when St. George's is closed by an unforeseen event or clogged with a major incident. Not just eggs in baskets but trying to put a quart into a pint pot unless it's due to expand its site outwards and upwards. Being ill is bad enough without being taken away from your local community. Government's Patients First and Patient Choice slogans seem to have been ditched. Now it's selected doctors know best do what you are told. Doctors should have an input but an elite of them should not run the show they should be treating patients and manning the A&E to their required level.

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Danny Bhoy says...
12:15pm Mon 4 Jun 12

The risk to patients is that the expertise is spread too thinly in London. I keep going back to it, but deaths from stroke and trauma were drastically reduced by the switch to a hub and spoke model. That's the template and the way forward. And they can't man A&E to the required level. That is the whole point. There aren't enough doctors to do so, and there aren't enough in training to cover the shortfall. That is why this whole review is happening.

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Danny Bhoy says...
12:15pm Mon 4 Jun 12

The risk to patients is that the expertise is spread too thinly in London. I keep going back to it, but deaths from stroke and trauma were drastically reduced by the switch to a hub and spoke model. That's the template and the way forward. And they can't man A&E to the required level. That is the whole point. There aren't enough doctors to do so, and there aren't enough in training to cover the shortfall. That is why this whole review is happening.

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Michael Pantlin says...
1:06am Tue 5 Jun 12

Not everyone is a stroke patient or RTA. Emergencies of the chronically sick need to be seen by the team that treats them such as the superb haematology service at St. Helier Hospital which keeps alive so many people. Carting them off to join the queue at a distant hospital, separated from their notes and the staff who already know the history and are able to start treatment immediately is a deterioration not an improvement. Proof of the pudding is in the eating and its worked fine for me on the 35 most urgent episodes. Many patients live alone and do not have anyone to transport them around when they are feeling very ill. I'm talking about dizzyness, confusion, fever, vomiting, shaking symptoms. Every movement is an agony and St Helier is quite far enough to travel thank you.

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Danny Bhoy says...
7:37am Wed 6 Jun 12

As I understand it most of the symptoms you describe would be termed urgent care by the NHS, so you would still be seen at St Helier. A&Es will treat life or death emergencies, but other urgent issues will still be dealt with locally.

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Danny Bhoy says...
7:39am Wed 6 Jun 12

Don't take my word for it though, ask them, I think you can submit questions on the Better Services website.

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Michael Pantlin says...
11:15am Wed 6 Jun 12

As BSBV are wise and painstaking in their duties I have every confidence that they will assess public reaction including in the local press and at some point explain what will happen to individual specialites in terms the public can understand and assuage everyone's anxieties with detailed guarantees and reassurances if they haven't reached their sell-by date and been disbanded. These changes are being introduced by a Coalition that can't be trusted as in forcing through the unmandated NHS Act in the face of almost universal opposition so it follows that their appointed minions cannot be trusted either. The hospital's profit and loss account seems to fluctuate wildly as a lever to diminish our District General Hospital. Fortunately we have an undisputedly hard-working MP on the case in Tom Brake who reads all the reactions put to him. Whether hard work will be sufficient for success will depend on overall public opinion. Fortunately too we have a Coalition which has corrected come of their amateurish wrong decisions with so called U-turn policy reviews and no doubt they could do this for St. Helier Hospital at the stroke of the right pen.

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Michael Pantlin says...
2:01pm Fri 8 Jun 12

I have just read in the St. Helier Management's Newspaper that Epsom Hospital is set to be cut away and remerged with Ashford and St. Peter's. Many Carshalton local residents would ask Where on earth is Ashford? Chertsey has no natural connections with our area.

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