‘The Trust must listen to us’

Health Editor Barry Nelson talks to those in favour of the proposals and those against.

WHEN Clive Auld moved to Bishop Auckland from Sunderland 40 years ago, his adopted town had a fully functioning general hospital. While some of the buildings were showing their age, the hospital had a full range of medical and surgical facilities.

About nine years ago he was impressed with the service when he was operated on for a grumbling appendix at Bishop Auckland within a week of becoming ill. So in the late 1990s, the former regional crime squad detective was delighted when it was announced that a new, state-of-the-art replacement hospital would be built on the same site at Escomb Road, but, within a few years, the relentless round of cuts started.

The maternity unit was downgraded to a midwife-led department, the children’s ward was downgraded so that admissions could only take place during the day, the Special Care Baby Unit was transferred to Darlington, general surgery and intensive care were downgraded and othopaedics was restricted to hip and knee replacements.

Then in 2006, Ward 3, for medical and haematology patients, closed, followed by Ward 9, a surgical ward, last year.

However, it was the announcement earlier this year that health bosses at the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust wanted to concentrate more acute services at Darlington Memorial Hospital and the University Hospital of North Durham at the expense of Bishop Auckland General that spurred Clive into action.

He offered his services to the town’s Save Our Hospital campaign, formed two years ago to fight further loss of services.

In the last few days, Clive has been giving out leaflets in Bishop Auckland, enlisting support for a public rally in the Market Place on Saturday.

His message is simple: “All we want is for the Trust to think again, listen to what the people are saying. Restore our hospital to its former glory and provide a good, viable healthcare facility to the people who are paying for it.”

Clive says the hospital serves a largely rural area of 195 square miles, with a population of just under 100,000. Many are elderly, reaching the time in their lives when they will need their local hospital.

“Nobody in this town supports this plan. You will not find anyone who will say this is a good idea,” says Clive.

“People are genuinely concerned at the calibre of the service which is going to remain.

People are not disputing that they have to go to the James Cook or the Freeman for specialist services, but there is concern about basic acute services and emergency care.”

He believes the current round of public consultation meetings, which include one at Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland, tomorrow evening are “a sham”.

And he says he can’t understand why hospital officials are planning to spend £30m on refurbishing Darlington Memorial Hospital when a new hospital is so under used. “I am also really worried that if this plan goes ahead the hospitals in Darlington and Durham will not be able to cope.”

Clive says the prospect of Bishop Auckland Hospital becoming merely a centre for planned surgery and rehabilitation is not one which he can accept.

“The Trust has to listen to us.

We don’t want these changes.”

BOB Aitken gets exasperated when critics claim the proposals to change hospital services in County Durham are all about money. The consultant obstetrician insists plans to concentrate acute services at Darlington and Durham, rather than Bishop Auckland are about guaranteeing patient safety.

He insists that not making the changes would mean an increasing number of services would no longer be safe for patients.

If the proposals go ahead, the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust plans to invest £7m at Bishop Auckland Hospital and another £30m at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

The investment at Bishop Auckland will be used to prepare the hospital for its new role as a centre for planned surgery and rehabilitation, while Darlington is to expand facilities to cope with an expected increase in demand for accident and emergency and acute medical services.

Mr Aitken argues that the Trust’s proposal is the only logical way forward at a time when smaller multi-site hospital trusts are being squeezed. A combination of cuts in junior doctor working hours and the insistence of the royal colleges that doctors must train where they get a variety of experience, all work against the Trust, he says.

He argues the only way the Trust will be able to maintain a full range of acute services in the south of County Durham is to concentrate them at Darlington.

Currently, Bishop Auckland General Hospital is not recognised for training purposes and has to rely on a relatively new staff grade of doctors. But there are not enough doctors at the hospital to guarantee the provision of 24- hour acute medical services.

And attempts by the Trust to recruit more doctors at Bishop Auckland have failed. “For more than a year we have been sending the sickest patients from Bishop Auckland to Darlington and Durham,” says Mr Aitken.

One of the main objections to the changes is the proposed downgrading of the Accident and Emergency Department at Bishop Auckland to an urgent care centre. But Mr Aitken insists that patients will continue to get the same level of treatment. The surgeon also stresses that patients who worry they might die in the back of an ambulance taking them to another hospital had nothing to fear.

“If you travel in a blue light ambulance and you are stabilised by paramedics between Bishop Auckland and Darlington you won’t have a negative outcome.

These days A&E treatment starts when the paramedic gets to you.”

■ For more information, visit the official website seizingthefuture.org.uk