Norman Baker MP Member of Parliament for Lewes constituency
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Norman Baker,
23 East Street,
Lewes,
East Sussex,
BN7 2LJ.
Tel: (01273) 480281.
Fax: (01273) 480287.
Email: info
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Eastbourne Hospital Faces Cash Crisis. Services already suffering, warns MP. And it will get worse.
Local MP Norman Baker has issued a stark warning that the cash pressures on the Eastbourne DGH are now affecting front-line services, and that matters look like getting even worse.
Following a meeting at senior level at the DGH this week, Norman has established:
- The hospital has been set a savings target of £10.8m for this year, over 5% of the budget
- Bed-blocking at the hospital has got worse, rather than better, with numbers rising in both May and June. The occupancy level is now one of the highest in the country
- The hospital intends to close the 3 or 4 wards currently occupied by bed-blockers, if they can be discharged, rather than using the extra capacity this would free up
- The current deficit of £1.7m looks like rising to around £5m by the year end
- New treatments officially approved for NHS use by NICE are not being provided by the DGH as the hospital cannot afford to do so
- The present children's in-patient services are only guaranteed for a further year, after which the local PCT will review the position in the light of proposed developments of ambulatory care services. Children requiring admission may thereafter be sent to Hastings
Norman comments:
"I am now seriously worried about the financial health of the DGH. I would call it poorly. It clearly needs a pick-me-up, and injection of cash. The deficit is going to increase, yet any attempts to bring the budget back into balance would have a serious effect on front-line services.
"Clearly the hospital needs to do all it can to reduce costs. I am particularly concerned about the over-reliance on expensive agency nurses. But the bottom line is that the hospital simply does not have enough money to deliver the level of service we expect.
"The DGH is pulling its horns in, and that means that a gap is opening up between the services available locally and those elsewhere in the NHS. We are moving back to a postcode lottery.
"The position with bed-blocking is particularly serious. It is simply unacceptable that numbers have risen from an already high base. I am afraid that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that East Sussex County Council is not serious about getting numbers down. It appears to have cynically worked out that it costs less to pay fines for failing to find places for patients ready for discharge, than to pay for places for them in residential care homes or nursing homes. I am raising this matter with the Health Secretary.
"It is also worrying that the present children's health services at the hospital are not secure. Clearly there is a genuine problem with recruitment, but it is not acceptable if we end up with children's in-patient services being transferred to Hastings, particularly for my constituents in Seaford and Polegate, who already have far enough to go to access the DGH, without having to travel to Hastings as well. We should be making health services more local, bringing them out to towns like Seaford and Polegate, not more distant, as appears to be likely here."