8:00am Tuesday 24th November 2009
By Katie Clark
HOSPITAL chiefs have pledged their commitment to Christchurch Hospital despite fears that the ongoing closure of wards is leading to the transfer of all services to Bournemouth.
Many staff and patients on various wards at Christchurch have been transferred to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital as part of a so-called transformation programme aiming to deal with the issue of too many beds at the NHS foundation trust.
A public consultation, which will finish on December 20, has outlined a stack of measures, which will leave just the Macmillan Unit, a reduced dermatology ward, an orthopaedic rehab ward and the outpatients and day hospital services open at Christchurch Hospital.
According to Joe Smyth, deputy director of operations at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, the measures to transfer core services to Bournemouth will ensure that a patient is not going back and forth to different hospitals for different types of care.
Mr Symth said: “This is not a planned move to have everything on the same site as yet. That is not what this consultation is about.
“But things have changed since 10 years ago. Patients are not spending as long in hospital and can receive a lot of aftercare at home.
“People having surgery now come in on that day and are able to go home afterwards which frees up a lot of beds here and as a result staff and wards.”
He added: “We are keen to bring the feeling and philosophy of care at Christchurch over to Bournemouth. We understand how people feel about the hospital and we do not want to lose that.
“We are in a very difficult economic situation and I cannot predict what the future is going to hold but I can predict that the quality of care will continue to improve.”
The trust is looking to make savings of over £20million over the next three years but have stressed that staff from Christchurch will be directly transferred to Bournemouth.
And Mr Smyth said the reason that some of the measures listed in the consultation were already under way was so they were ably prepared to cope with the seasonal and swine flu pandemic.
Linda Witchell, spokesperson for the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) said: “We have not had any representations from any patients concerned about this consultation or the measures under way at the hospital.”
Michael Turvey, chief executive at Christchurch Borough Council said: “We have received the consultation document and are formulating our response.”
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