Plans for cover change at Marlow Hospital to be reconsidered (From Bucks Free Press)

Plans for cover change at Marlow Hospital to be reconsidered

8:00am Saturday 19th September 2009 in Health By Andy Carswell

PLANS to change the way patients at Marlow Community Hospital receive treatment will be reconsidered after being branded “ineffective” and “dangerous”.

The county's Primary Care Trust proposed to cut the number of hours doctors are at the hospital from twelve to four per week.

But on Friday members of the county council's scrutiny committee for public Health services said the plans must be reviewed.

The plans, which affect other hospitals at Chalfont St Peter, Thame and Buckingham, represented “a substantial change in service provision”, the panel concluded.

More than 40 members of the public – including doctors and representatives of charity groups who rely on the community hospitals – attended the meeting.

One of them was Dr Chris North, a GP in Marlow since 1984 and managing partner of the Marlow Medical Group.

He said: “We felt – and still feel – four hours of cover over a week was not enough. Medically, legally and professionally it was not possible to do a good job for that amount of time.

“The PCT feels that the community hospitals are in fact nurse-run rather than doctor-run hospitals. They feel the nurses that run them are able to make the decisions that will make the hospitals run more effectively.

“I personally feel these are assumptions that have been untested. They are reaching assumptions about how nurses can work in that environment when they are not trained to do that.

“We feel that assumption is unproven and potentially incorrect.”

The contract to provide medical care at the county's four community hospitals was put out to tender and came in to effect from September 1.

The terms of the contract state two doctors will be assigned to cover Marlow, but not at the same time.

They will be contracted to cover up to 13 beds at the hospital for four hours a week.

But this was criticised by Mike Gilbert of Marlow Age Concern, which uses the facilities.

He said: “Short-term it means the local doctors can't have any influence over the treatment of their own patients which are in there.

“Nurses, in the medium term, won't be able to cope.

“The doctors' input would be so restricted it would be ineffective, if not dangerous, to the people in their care.

“Longer term, the question is will the cottage hospitals be viable under this arrangement, and will they close? That's the fear. If they aren't being effectively staffed, they could close.”

Committee chairman Mike Appleyard said: “People want the right type of care in the right place - close to home – and the message they've given loud and clear is they want to be consulted.”

The PCT now has 28 days to respond to the committee's recommendation. If the situation looks unlikely to be resolved, the plans can be referred to the Secretary of State for Health.

A progress report will be presented to the committee's next meeting at County Hall on October 9, with a full report expected in November.

The PCT was unavailable for comment.