The second public consultation meeting regarding the reconfiguration of stroke services in Kent took place yesterday (March 7) at Minster Village Hall.
The meetings are being held by senior managers at Kent and Medway NHS to explain their proposals to reduce the number of acute stroke units in Kent hospitals, centralising the services at just three locations. The hospitals for mid and west Kent are yet to be decided according to the proposal, but East Kent’s is designated as the William Harvey Hospital at Ashford.
The local Labour party, as well as campaign groups CHEK (Concern for Health in East Kent) and SONIK (Save Our NHS in Kent), have voiced objections to the plans. The latter has held protests outside QEQM Hospital, which will lose its stroke unit if the plans go ahead, to be replaced by a Hyper Acute Stroke unit (HASU) at WHH.
At the NHS Listening Event, Liz Shutler, of East Kent Hospitals, explained that the location of A&E services is also tied in with the stroke unit plans, explaining that wherever the future A&E goes, the HASU will follow. This will fuel existing concerns in Thanet that QEQM may be earmarked to lose its Accident and Emergency service in addition to its stroke service. A&E configuration is due to be reviewed this year and a public consultation is expected in the Summer.
The crowd at the meeting expressed many concerns including the safety of ambulance journey times from Thanet to Ashford which is approximately an hour away. The panel were also challenged robustly on their reasoning for planning just three units for the whole county.
Spokesperson for SONIK Carly Jeffrey, who attended the meeting, said: “We think that the panel learned that they can’t keep using urban areas like London or Manchester as examples to champion the centralisation of services. The audience made that clear. We at SONIK are still waiting for clear and detailed information that demonstrates that this method is safe and effective for rural areas with a large geography like ours.”
Watch a video of the meeting here.
A public consultation is now underway and Kent residents are urged to respond before the closing date on April 13.
Save our NHS in Kent has an online petition against the closure of QEQM’s stroke unit here, and can be contacted via their website www.saveournhskent.org.uk or [email protected]
The next Thanet consultation meeting is at St Peter’s Church hall in Hopeville Avenue, St Peter’s, at 10am on Saturday, March 24.
Report by Carly Jeffrey of SONIK
These managers haven’t even considered the impact of not keeping the stroke unit at QEQM! I was at the meeting yesterday & there was a counter argument for every excuse for closing QEQM stroke services. Thoroughly unethical to leave a huge, impoverished urban area like Thanet without this facility. We have a low life expectancy as it is. This wont help
Great work Carly.
Closing QEQM would be a disaster for Thanet and all those doctors and nurses who work there. QEQM is one of the best hospitals in the country for patient outcomes when it comes to strokes, so it is shocking that they want to close it.
Once again Dr Hargroves I ask the question ‘When is a Listening Event not a Listening event’ As the question hasn’t been answered I suggest this:
When local people are asked to choose between options that are unacceptable to them, with no possibility of influencing the outcome, in a process that doesn’t consider their needs and fears. That.Dr Hargroves and your Unlistening Events is Is the reality and gloss and spin wont alter that. Its wrong, you know its wrong and you know we know it’s wrong. We will not accept a degrading of services for those most in need in our communities. Ian Venables
Still waiting for a date for the promised Listening event for Dover and Deal
They don’t always give a lot of notice, which is a shame. Friends who wanted to attend have been unable to for this reason, and in some cases had to travel out of area just so they could get to a meeting. Not everyone will be so committed. They should have booked all of these in advance before the consultation began.
Village halls for consultation meetings are all very well but what about Ramsgate ? Do we not come into the equation ? The next thing will be losing our A&E at QEQM and then the closure of our hospital. Do we not count?It appears not !