8 July - Councillor Alan Downing fights your corner on health issues
I probably should have gone to last Tuesday’s Communities Scrutiny meeting if
only to see new Chairman Councillor Alan Downing in action but you cannot be in
two places at once. The fact that it dragged on for three hours made me a little
bit glad I was unable to be present. Thank goodness for webcasting.
Probably the most newsworthy subject was health, a subject on which Councillor
Downing has done his fair share of plain speaking in the past. Would he curb his
usual inclinations when in the Chair?
Changes are due for Erith Hospital and Richard Diment, another Councillor who
knows his way around health issues, said he was “somewhat baffled” by them. He
had been told nine months earlier following a discussion with a previous CCG
Managing Director that there was “an urgent crisis to be addressed and here we
are eight or nine months on and I haven’t heard what is to be done to improve the patient experience”.
“There are anecdotal stories of patients attending mid-morning and finding the
doors closed.” Bexley Health Watch has reported similarly. “What has been done
since those discussions nearly a year ago to improve those conditions?”
The answer was “reviews and consultations” and the space available will be
better utilised in future and refurbished. It was acknowledged that there have been temporary closures.
Chairman Alan Downing said that “things seem to drag on and on and are not fit
for purpose and it has not been fit for purpose for many many years. At the last
meeting in November we were told exactly the same things. If I was living in the
North of the borough I would be wondering what is going on. We will have 4,000
new residents there within the next couple of years and we can’t offer them any
Health Centre at all. It really is very very bad”.
“There has been ample time for the Trust to get organised
and sort something out and you talk about making more space but we are talking
about one room and Oxleas haven’t even put in a tender for the decorating. We can’t have this.”
“Discussions about the new stroke unit went on for four years! I want action
taken very very soon and quicker than you are offering. No one seems to know
what is going on. The staff are not consulted, the morale is actually dreadful, and everything is one big mish mash.”
“All we are getting is a nice new waiting room. We have to do better than this.”
Councillor Caroline Newton agreed “and was a little disappointed”.
Councillor Dave Putson, who lives in the North of the borough, was unable to get
an appointment with his own GP because of “staffing issues” and they referred
him to the Erith Urgent Care Centre. “It was embarrassing. It was overcrowded
and I could hear what was going on in the consulting room. It was not fit for purpose.
Councillor Putson was told that “it would require a full rebuild to meet that [problem]”.
He went on to say “we used to have a 24/7 A&E Department and now we have Erith eight until eight
and the long term plan is 31,000 new residents. We need a hospital.”
Councillor Alex Sawyer took a similar view and criticised the lack of
communication. “We are hearing about changes that might be coming but it does diddly squat for now.
Residents are being short changed.”
The discussion went on in similar vein for another hour. Councillor Downing said
that “I will leave here tonight not happy and not convinced. I would hope that
the Health Sub-Group will really really make it very unpleasant for the Trust to
get something done. It is really annoying that we represent residents and we
can’t offer them anything. Nobody knows”.