A PATIENT welfare group from Farnham has fiercely criticised health chiefs about plans to close local hospital beds The board of the Guildford and Waverley Primary Care Trust (PCT) was due to meet in public yesterday (Thursday) in Cranleigh to discuss proposals to close local hospital beds after launching its public consultation about the future of health services provided at Farnham, Haslemere, Milford and Cranleigh hospitals. The consultation period continues until February 28, with final decisions about the future of services being made at the board meeting on March 23. Frank Wilkes, chairman of the patient participation group from the Holly Tree Surgery in Wrecclesham, Farnham, said: "The current consultation organised by the PCT should be prompting action from everyone in the community concerned about the future quality of healthcare delivered locally. "While recognising that the PCT has an immediate financial problem it wishes to address, it is unhelpful to compound this by creating wider, long-term problems for patients and their families. "The whole point about community hospitals is that they serve a local need. Rehabilitation beds, frequently used by the elderly, need to be close to the patients' homes to enable ease of visiting by family and friends, many of who are also elderly, normal social interaction being an important part of the recovery process. "Removing beds in Haslemere, Cranleigh and Milford not only adds to the problems of these patients and their visitors, but it puts pressure on facilities in other local hospitals. "To the best of our knowledge, there is no large stock of empty beds at present. On the contrary, we believe bed occupancy is high. The desperate need is to keep community hospitals open to provide local services. Farnham residents shouldn't be breathing a sigh of relief at this stage that the new hospital has been reprieved. If any of the PCT's five options is implemented, the whole area covered by the PCT will suffer from the knock-on effects of too few beds for an ageing population." The consultation document, "Modernising Your Local Healthcare", outlines the PCT's five options for the future of locally based health services, including specific proposals relating to the way it wishes to develop community services and hospitals. The proposals are being put forward as a solution to the financial crisis the PCT is facing. Due to a predicted £6.2 overspend on its annual budget, the PCT argues that bed closures in hospitals across Waverley are a necessary cost-cutting measure as it bids to achieve its £10 million control-cost target so it can avoid starting the next financial year with a possible debt of £26 million. In the five options unveiled by the PCT at the meeting, a day-hospital service and outpatient facilities will be available at Farnham Hospital in all five options, but three of the options would see all the beds on the Elizabeth and Godwin wards at Haslemere Hospital close. The closure of Milford Hospital is proposed in four of the options and this would result in the transfer of 42 rehabilitation beds to Farnham in one option and the beds being shared between Farnham and The Royal Surrey County Hospital in another option. If Milford Hospital is saved, then it will share specialist rehabilitation services with Farnham that will see beds split between the two hospitals. The proposals are part of a major cull of beds by PCT, with the current 172 axed to between 137 and 140 depending on each option. With 10 beds and the Norman Day Hospital at Farnham Hospital having been already closed on a "temporary basis", the PCT's further cost-cutting measures, as unveiled in their five options, have already provoked criticism from local residents.
