Shotley Bridge Hospital
Derwentside District Council will aim to keep everyone up to date over the next six to seven months with what is happening at Shotley Bridge Hospital.
Next week consultants will be appointed by the Acute Trust, the Primary Care Trust and your two local councils to look at the future of the hospital. What we want to do is involve local people in this process, so that we all know what is happening during the review as well as its conclusions.
Everyone is aware that these are difficult times for the health service: But we believe the community's voice is even more important when difficult issues are ahead and this could be one place to express and collect the views of people concerned with our local services.
This site is called supporting Shotley Bridge Hospital and that is what we expect to hear, however what the District Council do not want to see are attacks or rants against groups or individuals: That will not help Shotley Bridge Hospital,we still have a great facility here and we can best support the staff and the hospital by being positive and letting those with influence realise how much we still value Shotley Bridge.
posted by derwentside district council @ 9:49 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
My elderly parents live in Shotley Bridge and they rely on the hospital for routine blood tests and other checkups.
Home care would not be suitable for them and instead of going to Shotley Bridge for further treatment they are already having to travel to Sunderland and Durham. The medical care may well be as good but the stress of travelling upsets them greatly.
Everyone in the area is aware of what a good hospital it is. The only people who want to shut it are the ones who are looking at budgets and not people's needs.
I'm assuming that nobody is going to send the specialists to my parents house, or is the plan that the specialists will hold clinics in GP's surgeries? A GP could not treat my parents as things are at the moment, instead they now have a regular 60 mile round trip to see consultants who used to hold clinics locally.
Stop closing our local hospital, the people who have these wonderful theories about reorganising services do not have to travel to appointments.
It is patronising to assume that on site care at home or at GP surgeries can offer the same standard of service as a well respected, well staffed LOCAL hospital.
I have lived in Derwentside all my life. Had two children, several operations, minor injuries and assorted medical care and appointments at Shotley Bridge Hospital. I work locally and usually manage to fit medical appointments round my working day. I do not want to travel to Durham, Bishop Auckland or places afar. We did not appreciate what a good hospital we had and allowed the major part to close without kicking up a fuss. Don't let the nameless ones close what's left. Save our hospital please.
I wonder if these consultants(how much are they getting paid i wonder?) take into account that when they move these local facilities not everyone has a car and some areas do not have a direct bus link to Durham or Sunderland and have to change buses at Stanley or better still do they care? Once they consultants have been hired the only points they will be bothered with is how many houses can be built on the site and how much will they get for the land as shown by the fact the old buildings have already been pulled down to make way for approx 200 houses. Please do not let what we have left of our local hospital go the way of the huts and old buildings and be moved and demolished forever once they close they will never reopen it doesn't matter what promises are made at the time.
I agree with the comments already raised. I was annoyed when the hospital was downgraded, but felt there was nothing I could do to stop this. The decision had been made and the views of local people were not considered.
I have had two children and made use of the antenatal and postnatal clinics at Shotley Bridge, but found it very frustrating that I had to travel all the way to Durham to actually give birth. It also meant visitors had additional transport and/or parking costs. One of my major worries was going into labour and having to travel through a morning rush hour to get to Durham. Shotley Bridge does not have any major "rush hour" problems, whereas Durham City Centre can be horrendous. It would have made much more sense to downgrade Dryburn hospital to a Community Hospital and sell of its surplus land as prime housing, where it is wanted and needed. Instead, Shotley Bridge has lost a huge part of its site and services, the sold off land is going to be used to build even more unwanted housing - turning a pleasant village into a commuter base for Newcastle and Durham, with little impact on local trade, but major impact on local medical and education services. The result being an increase in traffic from Shotley Bridge along all the major roads leading from it and a reduction in available local health services into the bargain. Anyone requiring major health treatment has to travel to Durham or Newcastle (or through these places to further afield), thus adding even more traffic to the already busy roads.
In this current era of "environmental impact" we seem to be making a backward step. Instead of having a good quality General Hospital offering a variety of services close to home where only the senior medical staff would be travelling by car / public transport, we have a reduction in local availability, forcing all patients, regardless of their physical ability, to have to travel huge distances adding even more traffic to the roads. Patients have to cope with having less visitors, as many would struggle with the extra cost / time factor in travelling further afield.
I haven't found anyone who wouldn't be prepared to pay a little extra into the health service if they could be GUARANTEED a good quality LOCAL service. The time taken to travel to other locations is one of the biggest problems of the current system of trying to operate a smaller number of larger organisations. The hospital then becomes a production line, with a distinct lack of personal service and personal knowledge from the staff. The patients become a bed number, rather than a name.
I have elderly parents who live local to Shotley Bridge. They use the outpatients clinics for eye care, foot care and toehr services. As they rely on public transport to get anywhere and find this a struggle, the fact that they CAN see a specialist by walking a few minutes along the road is a HUGE relief to them. The alternative, when local clinics are not available, is a minimum 1 hour bus ride, each way, to either Durham or Newcastle and they still have to walk from the bus stop. The reality of this is that a 10 min. appointment which they can attend locally by taking up about half an hour of their day becomes a full day out as they have to leave home about 2 hours before their appointment time, and can take up to 2 hours to get home again after their treatment is finished. Surely this cannot be classed as step in the right direction? These types of clinic are not the type of service which could be provided by home visits and I would be very surprised if the resources are available to make them available as clinics through the GP service.
My perception of the Health Service is that too much time and money is spent on Management Reveiws, Consultations, Appointments of Specialist Advisory Organisations, Surveys etc and not enough on employing good quality Ward and Department Managers who have true control over their "teams" and are given the funds and authority to listen to their staff and "customers" and provide services and changes to services to suit the needs of those customers, whilst maintaining good morale amongst their staff. True teamwork seems to have been forgotten and takes second place to budgets, cost cutting and administrative reviews.
I acknowledge that costs do have to be considered, but I'm sure more could be done to prevent bad management decisions, money wasted on unnecessary consultations and local fund raising. As I mentioned before, I'm sure most tax payers would be happy to pay a little extra Council Tax, if they could see evidence of how it was being spent and not wasted and how they and their families could benefit. The powers that be should try asking opinions and suggestions from their customers - they might be pleasantly surpised.
Shotley Bridge General Hospital always had a great reputation for quality and innovative treatments. Patients who lived equal distance between Shotley Bridge and Durham, thus having a choice between the two hospitals, would mostly choose Shotley Bridge as the one to travel to, due to its good reputation. This reputation should have been built upon, not destroyed. The way the land has been sold off for housing is a disgrace. Even if some of the older buildings were not considered to be suitable as wards by todays standards (even though they were much pleasanter and welcoming) they could have been turned into a tourist attraction such as a Museum of Medical Science - a great oppportunity was missed here, purely to gain the benefit of a short term capital injection into the NHS from the sale of land. Is there any evidence that these funds raised have been ploughed back into LOCAL services.
I strongly believe the existing hospital should be supported, expanded and developed for the good of this community.
I wrote to Hillary Armstrong to register my concern re the closure of the day care unit. She replied 15th June 06,informing me she had met withChief Executive John Saxby. He informed her that the closure would be reviewed after 6 months, and that there were no proposals to remove any other services, which 'are crirical to the overall work of the Trust'.Thes services included inpatient beds, 45 outpatient clinics, X ray and ultrasound facilities, Medical Investigation Unit (chemotherapy) Minor Injuries Unit and Day services for the elderly.
Als for the Advertiser 10.6.06:
'Hospital Trust bosses stress that the day care unit is only a tiny part of what is a thriving hospital used by nearly 60,000 people a year.'Now, surprise surprise, there is to be a study to consider closing the whole hospital.How can we trust these people who say one thing then do another. Remember how we lost acute services to start with, then what?
Presumably 60,000 people would then need to travel to Durham, Bishop Auckland or further should Shotley Bridge Hospital close. I wonder how many of the people making these decisions actually live in our area? We should at least have all of the services now provided, any less would be a very poor deal for our area.Shotley Bridge must be kept open!
Do we still have a great facility here? Seems to me like the hospital is diminishing, getting smaller and smaller, until it inevitably closes. Isn't it absurd that the population of Consett is growing rapidly yet our healthcare is getting smaller and smaller. Makes me wonder where all this money the Labour government claims to be putting into the NHS is actually going.
The people of Consett need local healthcare, the University Hospital of Durham just isn't close enough for alot of the residents here.
I have lived in Consett all my life and perhaps have been guilty of taking Shotley Bridge Hospital, and all its wonderful facilities, for granted.
I did try to object quite a few years ago through a petition set up by local churches. However it seemed that the powers that be had it all under control!!! They wanted to close us down and didn`t want to listen to us the ordinary folk.
Derwentside is growing at a phenomenal rate and yet our hospital continues to shrink. I feel particularly for those people who aren`t able to travel to Teesside, Hexham,Sunderland etc.We must think not only of the patients but also their visitors, again especially those who find it dificult to travel; this could be for a variety of reasons, not just age.
We must think of the people and stop being so money conscious. Our community is growing, remember how everyone thought Consett would die after British Steel Corporation closed its doors, look what was achieved.We have huge potential let`s build on that
I read in the "Advertiser" that a government report states that more services could be provided outside hospitals and closer to patients' homes in future. It seems this will be used to speed up the closure of Shotley Bridge Hospital.
For those of us who live in the district it seems unlikely that closing our local hospital will bring services closer to our homes.
4 words - keep shotley hospital open. I have lived in Derwentside all my life, in fact, I was born in Shotley Bridge Hospital. It was an absolute travesty that the main part of the hospital was closed without much of a to-do in the first place. However, I stand guilty of standing by and watching it happen like most of the local community.
The news that the current services at Shotley Bridge are now being reviewed - which is obviously code for 'what excuse can we use to close this baby down' - just runs shivers down my spine. And, quite frankly put, boils my urine.
How can the closure of Shotley Bridge be good for the local community? Any closure of the services at Shotley Bridge hospital would have major effects for every area of the community and I don't see how a group of consultants can carry out a thorough evaluation, without getting out into the community and researching this properly. However, I may be mistaken in what I think a consultants role is, perhaps 'accountants' may be a better description?
Anyhow, I would just like to state for the record that I think Shotley Bridge Hospital is an important part of the community. Its a lifeline to many people to whom transport is an issue and to those of us who use its services on a regular basis. Furthermore, I think a consultancy should be looking at how we can further enhance the services provided and ways and means of securing investment in the facility.
Consett has boomed in terms of house building and has become a commuter town, and I believe the population is constantly on the rise because of this. Can we really afford to be without this facility?
SAVE SHOTLEY BRIDGE HOSPITAL! Is there anything else we can do, apart from this blog? I'm so frustrated about being one person and not being able to make a difference. Where are all the money we pay in taxes going, if we're just subjected to cut after cut after cut of vital community services?
While I was pregnant I got pre-eclampsia and had to visit Shotley Hospital every day for tests to make sure me and my baby were OK and as I work and live in Consett it was very convenient for me and the staff there were great. My mother also had a new knee fitted at Bishop Auckland hospital last year and she is able to have her follow up appointments at Shotley which is so much easier for her to get to as she lives in Moorside.
Two months ago I came home from work in crippling pains and I went to Shotley Hospital out of hours and they say me within 15 minutes and was told by the doctor that she suspected I had kidney stones and was given a pain killing injection to get me through the night till I could go and see my own Doctor the next morning. I then went to Shotley Hospital for a scan which confirmed I had a kidney stones if I had had to go to Durham I know doubt would have had to wait hours to be seen we need to keep Shotley Hospital open at all costs as the facilities are vital to Derwentside
Being involved in project management for thirty years,I can understand the logic (although I do not condone it) that reduced shotley hosp to its present condensed state. However hospitals are not just "cost centres" They are an integral part of the community. This hospital along with my GPs practice have saved my life from Cancer, diagnosis,treatment and follow up all under the same roof I coundnt be more gatefull.Can the people of derwentside make a difference? how can we stop this disgracefull act of economy/
Surely the facilities at community hospitals should be expanded rather than reduced. Already the x ray department closes at 5pm, which means that if I were to visit the Minor Injuries Unit at Shotley after 5pm, and require an x-ray, I would have to go to Durham hospital.
The facilities at Shotley are slowly being eroded, If we take away support services such as x-ray, how long before other services such as Minor Injuries or GP out of hours close. We even now have to travel to Darlington or Bishop Aukland for some services. Stop the rot now and give Shotley Bridge Hospital the facilities to provide the excellent care it has provided in the past.
I live in Shotley Bridge and feel that the closure of the hospital would have disasterous effects on the local community. Many would have to travel to gateshead, Newcastle or Durham, all having relatively equal distances. As Derwentside District Council are willing to sell off every small piece of land to developers the area is only going to grow and with the building community we would invariably require enough health care to cover the local population. To close the hospital would be foolish. I myself have had to use the out of hours facilities several times for my wife which I was able to travel to myself. If it had not been there I would have had to use the 999 emergency services costing a great deal more in ambulance fees which could have had a knock on effect on an already stretched service. I work for the NHS and local government and feel the closure would be an uneffective money saving scheme which will end up costing the NHS a great deal more in the long run.
I attended 'OUR HOSPITALS' day unit this week, with trepidation, for minor surgery. My experience? Overwhelmingly good! The disabled parking, the portering service, admin. secretaries, and staff just walking past me, were friendly and welcoming. I felt as though I belonged, albeit temporarily, to their working world. The minor surgery was performed with a step by step explanation of what was happening by staff who made time to make me feel safe and secure. They worked professionally as a team and I wasn't made to feel a nuisance. Thank you to Sister Kennedy, Nurse Heighway and Miss Geddes! PLEASE, PLEASE, KEEP OUR HOSPITAL OPEN! IT WOULD BE A CRIME NOT TO!
ki was born in shotley and so was my son. i have never been pleased about how much of the hospital has already been closed and find it disturbing that people would consider closing whats left. we once had what i believe to be the best hospital in the north east and dont want to loose it. people sould talk to the residents of derwentside to see how much shotley means to us before they even think about removing something so important
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