Representatives from Shaftesbury & District Task Force will introduce the ‘Save Our Beds Campaign’ in relation to the current NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group consultation.
Minutes:
Lester Dibben Secretary of the Shaftesbury & District Task Force (S&DTF)
and members of the Save our Beds (SoB) Campaign were in attendance to give information on the campaign.
The 'Shaftesbury Town Council Westminster Memorial Hospital (WMH) Working Group' was set-up to bring together various independent groups working to oppose the CCG plans to close the beds at the WMH, such as SoB & S&DTF. The Working Group had met weekly to allocate tasks, act as a forum for ideas, receive progress reports from the independent groups and to disseminate the information to the local councillors and representatives present.
There had been a meeting with Dorset County Council earlier that day, when the group had challenged them for not carrying out the consultation properly. It was hoped that they would now agree to give more time for people to complete the consultation.
However since that meeting the Group had received a letter stating that the consultation would not be extended and did end at midnight on February 28.
Julian Prichard; the founder/manager of SoB explained that the Group was set up to make sure the consultation and questionnaires were sent out properly. The model they had involved a representative from each street in Shaftesbury. If an extension was granted, then the volunteers were ready to move in to south wilts to promote the consultation. Dick Ripper had collected together a 3,000 to 4,000 signature petition.
A second consultation on Mental health services in Dorset was running from 1st Feb to the 31st March.
Although we are in Wiltshire and not Dorset, some of our parishes were covered by this hospital.
Dr Helen Tucker; a consultant employed by S&DTF who was the Vice President of the Community Hospitals Association; had written a report. She felt that it was a good thing that the Opinion Research Services (ORS) which had carried out the consultation would be analysing the questionnaires, as the ORS were accepting consultation questionnaires until the end of the week to allow for delays in the postal system. The consultation questionnaires, for those with learning difficulties, carried no end date but would no longer be accepted. Limited information had been recently accepted from Shaftesbury Town Council but there was no guarantee that future information would be accepted.
Cllr Green had also attended a meeting and noted that she felt that people were being short changed with the length of the consultation and that many Wiltshire residents around the boundary had no idea about it. Along with the proposal to remove the beds, the minor injuries and clinics would also be going. She urged everyone to go back to their parish councils to respond.
Cllr Wayman had been liaising with the Cabinet member for Health for information on Shaftesbury hospital. Some information had been provided by Wiltshire CCG, which stated that there had been 613 attendances to the hospital for the minor injury unit from Wiltshire residents, but that these were from a total of 7 spells which amounted to 230 bed days. It had seemed to take a long time to get this information. Cllr Wayman also contacted the local MP who also seemed not to be that helpful.
Question:
· Have you contacted the Tisbury link scheme for their figures of the number of people using their service to access the hospital? Answer: No, thank you for this.
Link to the website: http://saveourbeds.co.uk/