Posts Tagged ‘a&e’
March 16th, 2010 | 
Author: Local Campaigner Gordon Birtwistle has hit out at plans to close Burnley hospital children’s ward and transfer most services transferred to Blackburn.
Inpatient beds will be moved to Blackburn by the end of the year. Whilst children with minor illnesses will still be treated in Burnley, anyone requiring an overnight stay will have to go to Blackburn.
Gordon said: “What we will have is a new maternity facility, but no children’s ward or paediatricians. If that is the case then the lunatics really are running the asylum.
“This is totally unacceptable. We will fight tooth and nail to prevent this happening. It’s a death by a thousand cuts and this is the latest cut in the death throes of Burnley General Hospital.
“Parents will be facing a round trip of over 20 miles to visit their sick children, and those without a car will have to struggle with public transport.
“The people who have dreamed this up should resign and have their places taken by people who understand what is needed in Burnley.”
Local health bosses have been ordered by the Government to make £50 million worth of cuts over the next three years, which they have described as the most severe they have experienced.
“It may prove that only extra money will permit Burnley to have its own facilities. If so, then the government needs to respond. Burnley people and their local representatives will always prioritise public health over illegal foreign wars, useless ID cards and disastrous defence procurement projects. This money must be spent instead on helping people to stay fit and healthy, and that is what we expect our government to do.”
Posted in Latest News, Local News, Local News, News | 
Tags: a&e, birtwistle, election, gordon, health, hospital, lib dems, nhs, petition, winning, won | 
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Now is the time for local hospital bosses to hold a truly independent inquiry into the closure of Burnley’s A&E unit.
“We now have a new Chair and Chief Executive of the local hospitals trust”, said local campaigner Gordon Birtwistle. “Now they can start to undo the mistakes made in recent years.”
The Trust’s new chief executive is also the Chief Exec for two successful A&Es in Halifax and Huddersfield. These serve two towns closer together and with a smaller population than Burnley and Blackburn and show that it is possible to have an effective solution with two A&E units.
Gordon led the fight against the Labour government’s plans to shut Burnley’s A&E unit and recently presented a petition signed by over 9000 local people calling for it to be re-opened.
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Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Coun Gordon Birtwistle is demanding the re-opening of Burnley’s Accident and Emergency after discovering that the new East Lancs hospitals chief executive believes that two A&Es are needed even for a smaller population than that supported by just one A&E in East Lancashire.
And Burnley Council is set to pass a motion making its own demands at its next meeting. Led by the Lib Dems, the Council will insist that the decision to close the Burnley service be re-examined by outside experts, repeating the calls made by both Burnley and Pendle councils in February 2008, and echoing calls made recently by former hospital governors Ian Woolley and Peter Pike. The moves follow the delivery of petitions by Coun Birtwistle to the hospitals trust and to NHS East Lancashire containing a total of over 15,000 signatures. But incoming hospitals chair and former Labour County Council leader Hazel Harding said, “The Trust does not share the view that a further independent external assessment of emergency care is necessary. A further external assessment will not be commissioned by the Trust.”
The trust that manages Burnley and Blackburn hospitals has both a new chair and chief executive, and the Lib Dems believe this represents the best opportunity to get the A&E re-opened that Burnley is likely to have for several years.
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Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Coun Gordon Birtwistle said, “The new chair and chief executive were not part of the decision to close Burnley to emergencies. They bear no responsibility for it. There is no reason for them to insist on keeping it closed and they have nothing to lose by ordering a review of the decision.
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“The new chief executive also runs hospitals at Halifax and Huddersfield. Both these hospitals have an A&E but they are just 5.2 miles apart, much closer together than Burnley and Blackburn. These Yorkshire hospitals have no trouble meeting the A&E waiting time targets, the books are balanced and a national audit said these hospitals had the best probable survival outcomes for patients suffering major trauma, by which they mean things like traffic accidents.
“Burnley should have what Huddersfield has – the best outcomes for patients.
“The new chair needs to be bold and to meet the aspirations of the people who both pay for and use the service. She must not let herself be hoodwinked by what remains of the old management at the Trust.”
The Trust’s new chief executive splits her time between East Lancashire and the Halifax and Huddersfield areas.
Former trust governor and fellow Lib Dem Coun Darren Reynolds added, “The hospitals at Halifax and Huddersfield provide two A&Es for a population of around 435,000 people, but in East Lancs we have a single Emergency Department for over half a million people.
“It’s not just Halifax and Huddersfield that do better. Chorley and Royal Preston hospitals both offer an Accident and Emergency department. They are less than 14 miles apart, less than the distance between Burnley and Blackburn hospitals. The Chorley and Preston hospitals only cover 370,000 people, less than two thirds of the number of people in East Lancs.
“No-one is suggesting that these other areas would do better if one of their A&Es were shut.
“It is perfectly obvious to me that Burnley was downgraded for financial reasons. Board meeting minutes show that having an A&E at Burnley was not thought viable because it was too expensive. There are two reasons for that.
“One is poor management at the Trust. The breast cancer scandal does nothing to improve public confidence in the trust management, nor does the money wasted on the scrapped Foundation Trust bid, which should never have been started.
“The other reason is that we have a government that continues to prioritise killing people in foreign countries over saving people here. How can it be right to spend billions on new nuclear missiles when our own hospitals aren’t up to scratch?”
“This is unfair on Burnley. We’ve just as much right to the best health care as anywhere else in the country.
“But none of this can be blamed on either the new chair or the new chief executive. If they can get a grip of the situation and turn things around, the people of Burnley will be delighted.”
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Posted in Latest News, Local News, Local News, News |
Tags: a&e, birtwistle, campaign, gordon, health, hospital, nhs, petition |
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Now they are closing the Childrens ward at Burnley General
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