MAJORITY OF RESIDENTS REJECT DOWNGRADING QUEEN MARY'S

THE majority of residents who responded to a consultation have rejected options to change A&E services in the area.At least a third of south east Londoners who responded to the A Picture of Health (APoH) consultation into downgrading health services in the area said that none of the proposed options were suitable.Some 2,469 residents rejected any option to close the A&E at Queen Mary Hospital, Sidcup, while only 1,949 elected to chose the most popular closure option out of the total three.

Director of the Centre for Health Management at the Imperial College London, Professor Rifat Atun, who presented the consultation results at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich last Friday, said most of the 8,374 replies were from Bromley and Bexley residents, whom he said had responded "passionately". Pointing to a slide which showed that the majority of respondents did not want any of the options, he said: "The results are quite clear for the decision makers to see and they must take the views of the public very seriously."

All options in the consultation proposed to close the A&E at Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup.

Option one - to keep an A&E department in Lewisham but to stop emergency surgery or paediatric services - was chosen by 23.3 per cent respondents.

Option two - to keep A&E as it is in Lewisham but take away children's assessment and treatment services - was chosen by 17.8 per cent.

Option three, closing the A&E at Lewisham, was chosen by 16.3 per cent. From Bexley Times 26.6.08

Response to Helen Cameron, Programme Director - APoH

In her letter (News Shopper 11th June) Helen Cameron, Programme Director for A Picture of Health unintentionally confirms our suspicion that the NHS bureaucrats are now seeking to give the impression that Queen Mary's Hospital's A&E admissions are now minimal, and those that there are are so low as to make keeping the A&E open unwarranted. In stating that of the 41 patients on average per day over the past year having been taken by ambulance to Queen Mary's only 2 to 3 were "blue light", i.e. requiring A&E services, she contradicts the statistics in the APoH consultation document which states that approximately 50% of A&E patients require A&E services.

This leaves a difference per day of 18 blue light patients. Where are they going? Is the APoH report wrong or is what is in fact happening is that the London Ambulance Service has been instructed to take blue light emergencies to one of the PFI hospitals first even if they're further away?

Even with an Urgent Care Centre, there will still be 30% of existing A&E activity that will be classed as a "very major health emergency" and will need to go to a fully admitting hospital. With Queen Mary's A&E attendances last year reaching 88,190, this means that over 26,000 very major health emergencies will have to go elsewhere. Anyone living in the Bexley, Sidcup or Chislehurst area, instead of having to travel a mile or so, would have to go an average 6 1/4 miles further to Princess Royal. It's one thing for the London Ambulance Service to claim its ability to get patients to hospital within target times, it's quite another for a bed to be available at a hospital that is 99.5% full.

If Ms Cameron feels her proposals foresee a bright future then she's looking through a very cloudy crystal ball indeed.