CAMPAIGNERS urging a rethink on the future of Westbury Hospital say that a new independent report into the NHS backs up their arguments.
The NHS review, commissioned by health secretary Jeremy Hunt and published last week by Labour peer Lord Carter says that one in ten hospital beds – over 8,500 every day – are occupied by someone well enough to leave if care had been organised in the community.
The ‘bed-blocking’ is costing the NHS £900million a year nationally.
And campaigners say that Westbury Hospital would be an ideal location for beds where patients could convalesce, freeing up beds in the larger hospitals. And they say that, if the report’s findings are taken on board, Westbury Hospital could be demolished only for the NHS then having to find somewhere new for beds in the community.
Westbury healthcare campaign group Sensible Thinking on Patients (STOP) had, during its campaign to save Westbury hospital, spoken of a need for beds and outpatient services in the town.
It was a view echoed by Westbury Town Council; in its objection to the hospital planning application the council said, “there would appear to be a significant local need for non-acute longer stay hospital beds.”
STOP chair Erica Watson said, “Wiltshire has improved its delayed discharge problem quite a lot, but Westbury is particularly disadvantaged because, other than primary care at the health centre, there are no services in the town.
“Trowbridge, Warminster and Frome all have community hospitals with outpatient services, but people from Westbury always have to travel.
“If Westbury’s hospital is demolished it will be a real missed opportunity in terms of dealing with this problem, not just for Westbury, but for health services across Wiltshire.”
Lord Carter’s review estimated that as many as 8,500 patients are being affected per day, and that delayed discharges contributed to the NHS having to pay private hospitals to do its work, and to growing A&E waiting times.
Westbury’s hospital was what is known as a ‘cottage hospital’; one used as a halfway stop for those well enough to be discharged from major units, but not ready to live independently.
Erica continued, “The Clinical Commissioning Group’s new model of healthcare just isn’t working for Westbury. The older step-down model was much better.
“A friend of mine from Frome was discharged from Bath and went back to Frome Community Hospital before being sent home. People in Westbury don’t have that option, and their quality of life suffers when they have to travel to access healthcare or to visit family and friends staying in hospital.”
Westbury MP, Dr Andrew Murrison, has spoken of his support for localised healthcare on more than one occasion.
In July last year he wrote, “I have long felt that we should concentrate secondary and tertiary care in larger regional and sub-regional hospitals, devolving what amounts to intermediate care to communities to be run by GPs. This would have positive implications for facilities like the old Westbury hospital for example, the need for which would be enhanced.”
He said last month in a debate about healthcare funding, “We will need to have fewer but bigger acute hospitals that offer all specialties as medicine becomes increasingly specialised in the quest for improved outcomes.
“It follows that there will be a need for better community hospital provision at a local level which will have the added advantage of unblocking acute hospital beds.”
Wiltshire Council is expected to decide later this month whether to allow the hospital demolition.
