There have been calls for beds at community hospitals in Thame and Marlow to remain closed according, to a health boss.

Bucks County Council’s Health and Adult Social Care select committee met yesterday (April 24) to quiz health bosses on the controversial community hub pilot - which is coming to the end of its one year trial.

Last year Bucks Healthcare Trust invested £1 million into creating the hubs at Marlow Hospital in Victoria Road and Thame Community Hospital in East Street in a bid to bring care closer to people’s homes.

The scheme has proved controversial after it was announced inpatient beds at the hospitals would not be used during the pilot – a move which was branded as “devastating” by campaigners at the time.

However despite calls from campaigners for the beds to re-introduced, chief executive at the trust, Neil Macdonald, told the committee that stakeholders, who were spoken to during a six month engagement survey, called for the beds to remain closed.

He added that there are too few nurses across the country to facilitate introducing more beds into hospitals.

Addressing the committee, Mr Macdonald said: “Stakeholder groups don’t want us to reopen those beds and are challenging us to use the capacity that has been created in those hubs better, which is a very fair challenge.

“I think the game changer in town is rather than waiting for a GP or someone else to send us a patient, we should be getting the data out of the GP systems.

“We should be targeting those individuals who are at risk and are likely to be health care users in a year, two years and we would like to bring them to the hubs and develop care plans for them beyond what their GP can do for them in their 10 minute consultation.”

Chief nurse at the trust, Carolyn Morrice, said 301 per cent more patients had been seen at Marlow hospital under the new scheme while Thame hospital has helped 310 per cent more patients than the previous inpatient scheme.

Patients hailed the support they received from staff, while others aired concerns over the lack of transport provided to help them get to the hubs.

Councillor Tony Green questioned why there were no complaints or criticisms from patients outlined in the trust’s report on the pilot.

He said: “With any organisation, however well received, how efficient it is, you usually get some complaints.

“Someone is unhappy about something, and yet we are not given any of that information.”

Ms Morrice insisted there had been no formal complaints about the hubs however admitted there were occasions where care provided was not up to scratch.

She said: “We tried wherever possible to pick up issues at the time and solve them so its real time. The consistent issues were transport, waiting time, in the early days it was around not having the right equipment, so time was wasted, and we picked that up day by day.”

The trust also outlined a proposed two year plan – which includes continuing current hubs in Thame and Marlow and eventually rolling the service out across the county.

The discussion was adjourned and the committee will meet again on May 22 to continue discussing the pilot.

To view the full report visit https://democracy.buckscc.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=113580