HOSPITAL CLOSURE - DEFERRED AGAIN!

5.15.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 11th Jul 2008

This Thursday was to have been decision-making time for the Norfolk Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) on the controversial proposal by Norfolk Primary Care Trust to close St. Michael's Hospital in Aylsham.

Massive campaigning against the closure, led by Lib Dem Parliamentary campaigner April Pond and Aylsham Town Council, has resulted in 2 deferments of the decision already, with 1143 letters from local residents being presented to the Health Secretary's office in London by Mrs Pond in September last year.

The decision to close intermediate beds in Norfolk was made last year, despite the PCT commissioning a new report to look into current and future healthcare requirements after the event! Mrs Pond said "It is ridiculous to commission a report which will show what healthcare requirements and beds are needed now and in the future, if you are not going to pay any attention to it. Why have beds been closed prematurely, when it is very possible that the Finnamore report will show that they are needed."

Mrs Pond also has concerns with the proposed "stroke unit" which was promised to Norfolk as a specialist facility, but which, she says, is rapidly becoming nothing more than a re-naming of existing acute beds. "We have been led up the garden path with talk of a dedicated stroke unit, and the latest information I have been given by the PCT is that a ward of the already over-stretched Norfolk and Norwich Hospital is to be the "Stroke Unit". This will mean less general acute beds, and potentially more Black Alerts."

The Scrutiny Committee are clearly unhappy also, as they have deferred the decision again. They will now look at it again in September.