Could Chorley and Grantham A&E closures be permanent?

A&Es are being closed as a temporary measure, but often in areas where NHS leaders have been trying to permanently close them in the face of strong public objections.

Serious questions have been raised over the future of the many services including A&E departments “temporarily” closed during the peak of the Covid crisis, many of which NHS bosses had sought to scale back in previous plans.

People of Chorley, South Ribble and surrounding areas are only too familiar with having to fight to save their A&E service at Chorley. The hospital has a history of having its A&E targetted for closure. Yet the resilience and fightback from  local campaigners has managed to stave off the ravages of capitalism and maintain the services, albeit part-time with a view to re-opening full time. But now even the part-time status of Chorley's A&E is at risk.....

Questions have been asked in the Commons over the “temporary” closure of already reduced A&E services in Chorley, Lancashire, and concerns have been raised locally over other “temporary” closures of A&Es in Cheltenham and Weston super Mare, and emergency surgery in Ealing Hospital.

Chorley

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has given a formal commitment in the Commons that Chorley’s “temporarily” closed part-time A&E will also reopen, although no time frame has been set. Here too plans to permanently downgrade the A&E, and use the Chorley site only for elective patients have been hotly debated for years.

Chorley’s MP is Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle – and has been working with other local MPs to resist the pressure to downgrade the hospital. Sir Lindsay welcomed the health secretary’s comments about reopening the A&E commitment”, but stressed that “the pressure [will] remain until that happens”.

The Chorley hospital A&E closed in 2016 on grounds of staff shortages, triggering a storm of local protest that forced a partial reopening, but trust bosses and local commissioners have continued to favour options that would close the full-time A&E and critical care beds at Chorley.

Last August [2019] a document assessing 13 options for the future of hospital services in Chorley and Preston was published arguing it was not “clinically viable” to retain accident and emergency facilities at Chorley. However it also argued that “It is clear from high-level clinical activity modelling that the population health requirements could not be serviced by one of the two current hospitals” – and there was no money to build a new hospital, or expand either to cope. Indeed while the report claimed to be “clinically led” it noted that its preferred options were precluded by a lack of capital and the financial plight of the trust.

By January 2020 it was clear that reports by four different sets of clinicians had all come out against the possibility of either restoring a round-the-clock A&E unit or continuing with the existing limited hours service at Chorley.

Whilst that may sound defeatist, we must remember that all these so called clinicians are guided, not by proven clinical outcome, but by promises of an untrialled system that aims to alleviate financial constraint by providing less healthcare. 

Some excerpts above taken from the full article of The Lowdown [see link below] which looks at the disgraceful way Grantham hospital and its residents have been treated and how Chorley and other hospital A&Es need to be aware of the dangers of broken promises...

Click below to read the full version from The Lowdown

Will “temporary” closures and cuts ever be reversed?