500 signatures reached
To: NHS 'Success Regime'/Government
Save isolated Alston's hospital Beds
Please consider alternatives to closing the beds in our Cottage Hospital, as this puts lives in this remote area at grave risk. Please retain the hospital beds at the Cottage Hospital in Alston.
Why is this important?
Alston is the highest market town in England, and lies 21 miles from any other towns-only 2 of which have a hospital. Alston is over an hour's drive from Carlisle Hospital. ALL 5 roads out of Alston cross high moorland in the North Pennines, and these are frequently closed or rendered treacherous by winter weather between November and March.
Ambulances would face a very long, slow and difficult journey to reach a patient and to get them to hospital. Lives will be put at risk. Lives may well be lost if the threat of closure of our Cottage Hospital beds is carried out.
Moreover, our absolutely brilliant Doctors Surgery, which depends on the hospital beds to sustain it, could then also eventually close. Where will the 2000-3000 residents of Alston and Alston Moor then go for initial emergency care, to see a doctor, or for other general GP services? There is no bus service to speak of (also cut back).
In addition some of the stunning roads in the region produce more than average numbers of road accidents, particularly involving motorbikes and are often very serious. One of our local GPs can be on the scene within minutes--at the moment. If the GP Surgery also has to close, the nearest 'first response' possible will have to travel 21 miles (on notoriously slow windy roads) just to reach the casualty.
Do all these lives count for nothing, that we we should lose our hospital beds, our local GPs and an effective emergency response, simply because we live in a beautiful but isolated locality?
Why not, indeed, use the beds at Alston (and a small number of other places in Cumbria similarly threatened) as 'OVERSPILL' beds.
These beds could be used temporarily by those patients, often elderly, who no longer need to receive medical treatment on the Ward but who need some nursing and monitoring.....whilst they wait for appropriate care to be provided in/by their own community. This would also relieve and 'unblock' several beds in General hospitals for those on the waiting list, and for emergency treatments.
Surely this a much more cost-effective way of using our Cottage Hospital beds, rather than simply
closing them and leaving a great facility redundant?
Ambulances would face a very long, slow and difficult journey to reach a patient and to get them to hospital. Lives will be put at risk. Lives may well be lost if the threat of closure of our Cottage Hospital beds is carried out.
Moreover, our absolutely brilliant Doctors Surgery, which depends on the hospital beds to sustain it, could then also eventually close. Where will the 2000-3000 residents of Alston and Alston Moor then go for initial emergency care, to see a doctor, or for other general GP services? There is no bus service to speak of (also cut back).
In addition some of the stunning roads in the region produce more than average numbers of road accidents, particularly involving motorbikes and are often very serious. One of our local GPs can be on the scene within minutes--at the moment. If the GP Surgery also has to close, the nearest 'first response' possible will have to travel 21 miles (on notoriously slow windy roads) just to reach the casualty.
Do all these lives count for nothing, that we we should lose our hospital beds, our local GPs and an effective emergency response, simply because we live in a beautiful but isolated locality?
Why not, indeed, use the beds at Alston (and a small number of other places in Cumbria similarly threatened) as 'OVERSPILL' beds.
These beds could be used temporarily by those patients, often elderly, who no longer need to receive medical treatment on the Ward but who need some nursing and monitoring.....whilst they wait for appropriate care to be provided in/by their own community. This would also relieve and 'unblock' several beds in General hospitals for those on the waiting list, and for emergency treatments.
Surely this a much more cost-effective way of using our Cottage Hospital beds, rather than simply
closing them and leaving a great facility redundant?
How it will be delivered
I will deliver proof of the signatures in person.
