* Consultation closed on 1st February

Cumbria NHS has just completed a consultation on the future of local health services in the northern two-thirds of the county. The consultation was called "Closer to Home". It included five public meetings. About 400 people attended a meeting in Whitehaven Civic Hall on Monday 14th January 2008. Another meeting at Millom School was held on Thursday 24th January.  

The preferred option put forward by the Primary Care Trust (PCT) will retain consultant-led maternity and A&E at the West Cumberland hospital, and does not propose the closure of any community hospitals, there have been some serious concerns, some of which were addressed by proposed changes to the plans which emerged during the consultation.

a) The original document proposed to centralise all Major Trauma work in North Cumbria at the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle. Many doctors and members of the public were concerned that this would represent too great a reduction in the service provided by the West Cumberland hospital to be a safe and sustainable way of protecting the interests of patients in West Cumbria.

However, the PCT and Acute Trust have changed their position on this following strong pressure from doctors and the community, and now recognise that trauma care should be provided at both the West Cumberland and at the Cumberland Infirmary.  

b) the proposals include significantly fewer beds, both at the West Cumberland and at Cumbria's Community hospitals. Originally it was suggested that there would only be 192 beds, including 20 community hospital beds, at the West Cumberland Hospital. (There are currently over 300.) This was a matter of some concern to clinicians at the West Cumberland, who did not consider that this was enough beds to meet the needs of the community. The Acute Trust is now putting forward that there should be a minimum of 220 acute beds at the West Cumberland Hospital with an option to increase this to 250 if the planned efficiency improvements cannot be achieved. Copeland Conservates believe that the original proposals were not tenable and we support as an absolute minimim the 220 acute beds now promised by the North Cumbria Acute Hospitals Trust: we welcome that the need for beds will be annually reviewed with the option to increase to 250.

 c) Complex surgery and out-of-hours emergency surgery is proposed to be discontinued at West Cumberland Hospital, and patients affected will be transferred to other hospitals, of which the nearest is the Cumberland Infimrary in Carlisle. We are further advised that patients at Millom Community hospital requiring complex surgery may be transferred, not to Whitehaven or Barrow, but to the Royal Lancaster or to Preston. It was admitted at the Millom public meeting that the trusts have not finalised their proposals on this: there will be a separate consultation later in 2008 about hospitals in South Cumbria. 

d) Critical information, such as how many extra patients per year will be transferred to other hospitals was not yet available at the start of the consultation. We have beem advised that the number of extra transfers from West Cumberland Hospital as a result of "Closer to Home" will be approximately 2 out-of-hours emergency surgery cases per week.

We recommend that anyone who cares about local health services should follow the local press for information about these issues, and that we should all continue to take an interest following the end of the formal public consultation. You can monitor the response of the PCT to public comments at the consultation website, which is

www.closertohome.org.uk

Copeland Conservatives' formal response to the consultation, submitted by PPC Chris Whiteside, was as follows

"Copeland Conservatives endorse the comments on the "Closer to Home" proposals made by both Copeland Council and Allerdale Council. We would particularly like to emphasise the following issues and concerns.

Firstly, the PCT and Acute Trust must learn from the difficulties experienced during this consultation about the need to improve communication with clinicians, GPs, other staff, and the public. Although there were eventually some welcome improvements made in the proposals as a result of feedback, particularly from Consultants at WCH, it was painfully apparent for most of the consultation period that the efforts made by the trust to engage with consultants and GPs were not working as well as we would all have wished. The commissioning model in "Closer to Home" will not work unless all GPs can be far more effectively involved with the process than many of them evidently were with the consultation.

Secondly, while the revised proposals for care of patients with significant trauma do appear to be a significant step forward, we wish to reiterate that the original form of words in the consultation document would not have been acceptable.

Thirdly, we welcome the proposals to invest more money in the ambulance service: this is and will remain a key part of providing medical care in an area with the sort of geography which Cumbria has, and it will be necessary to work to improve it.

Fourthly, while the new Acutue Trust proposals for the number of beds at West Cumberland Hospital have gone some way to reduce our concerns, we believe that it is essential not to implement any bed reductions in Acute or Community hospitals until replacement services are fully in place. The number of beds proposed in the original consultation document was not in our view adequate.

Fifthly we consider it most important that the issues raised during the consultation affecting stroke care and palliative care continue to be addressed.

Sixthly we are concerned that Millom and South Copeland to some extent fall between the areas affected by the "Closer to Home" consultation and the separate consultation for South Cumbria expected later this year, especially as regards trauma and emergency care. It is extremely important that the Millom and South Copeland area does not lose out as a result of this status.

Finally we believe that the financial model for the proposals will need to be very carefully monitored to ensure that it remains sustainable.

We welcome the constructive dialogue that community representatives have had with the PCT and acute trust over the past few months, and particularly in January, and look forward to working with them for better health care in Cumbria.

Cllr Chris Whiteside
Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Copeland"

2) CATS

Also on the local NHS, it now appears that the government has abandoned the proposals to impose on Cumbria and Lancashire a nationsl model for diagonostic and treatment centres.

While we always welcome improvements in our local health service, the CATS proposals were an attempt to impose a national model of care which would not necessarily have been right for Cumbria and might have endangered existing services at the West Cumberland Hospital and our cottage hospitals including Millom and Keswick. Local Conservatives, local doctors, NHS unions and other community groups had campaigned against implementation of the proposals as they were proposed or in any other form which might jeopardise existing services and we welcome the withdrawal of the national proposals.

However, the Cumbria Primary Care Trust (PCT) is still interested in the possibility of developing what they have described as a "CATS - like solution". If such a solution does come forward it will need to be carefully examined. We believe it would be a mistake to implement CATS in any form which might jeopardise existing hospital services.

4) First Stand-up,Speak-up meeting held in Keswick

3) Antiques Evening - 25 January 2008

Copeland Conservatives held a very successful Antiques evening at St Bees School Business Centre on Friday 25th January. The next social event is expected to be in March. For details of future events, watch this space.