Norman Baker MP Member of Parliament for Lewes constituency
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MP slams NHS “sham meeting” on Eastbourne DGH services
Local MP Norman Baker is accusing the Strategic Health Authority of failing to do its job properly and treating local people with contempt, after it emerged that the SHA plans to hold a meeting on Thursday to approve plans to withdraw maternity services from Eastbourne when they have yet to be agreed locally by the two East Sussex Primary Care Trusts.
An extraordinary meeting of the Strategic Health Authority has been fixed for Thursday with only one item on the agenda – to approve the recommendation from the two East Sussex PCTs for a Hastings-based single site option for maternity services, at the expense of the DGH in Eastbourne – yet the meeting of the SHA is due to begin at a time when it is likely that the two East Sussex Primary Care Trusts will still formally be considering the matter at their own meeting.
Local MP Norman Baker has spoken to senior management at the SHA in Horley who have admitted:
- their meeting is due to begin at 12.30 on Thursday when the PCTs may well still be meeting
- that although the meeting of the SHA is a public one, there is no way that any interested party can attend both the PCT meeting in Uckfield and that of the SHA in Horley
- that no consideration was given to holding both meetings sequentially in the same building
- that the agenda for the SHA meeting does not ask the board to receive and consider the recommendations of the PCTs, but to confirm the Hastings-based single-site option which the PCTs have not yet even discussed
Norman Baker says:
"This is an outrageous process, which merely confirms what many have long suspected, namely that the bureaucrats who run the NHS in our area made up their minds a long time ago that what they wanted was maternity services based at a single site in Hastings, and that all the discussions, all the detailed representations, all the opposition has been for nothing. It will not be surprising if people conclude that the so-called consultation has been nothing more than a cynical exercise and a sham.
"If the Strategic Health Authority was doing its job properly, it would take time to evaluate the recommendations of the PCTs, and do so neutrally. Instead, they seem to see their role merely to act as a rubber stamp, and one operating with unseemly haste. And how can the SHA know that the PCTs will adopt the recommendations put before them? Do they know something we don’t? This has all the hallmarks of a stitch-up.
"The SHA is showing contempt for the democratic process, both by making their minds up in advance and by holding their meeting at a time and place which those most interested and affected cannot hope to attend.
"I am now calling on the SHA’s Chief Executive Candy Morris to postpone Thursday’s meeting until the New Year, to withdraw the recommendation to ‘confirm’ the single site and instead undertake to assess the PCTs’ recommendations, and to hold their postponed meeting in East Sussex, where local people can attend and make their views known. If they do not agree to this, then I will be raising the matter direct with the Health Secretary."