"What a cracking public meeting on Thursday at the Haslemere Hall," said the Surrey county councillor for Haslemere, Christine Stevens (pictured), in a letter to The Herald this week. She continued: "What a clear statement from Haslemere people that bed closures at Haslemere Hospital are simply not on. Congratulations to all involved, but we must maintain the fight. "What a great job our GPs and the Friends of Haslemere Hospital are doing. Our MP Jeremy Hunt's summing up hit all the buttons. "Change is the only constant, but for me, there are two key issues: clear end product (what is it we want the PCT to plan to deliver?) and process for delivering the product (does the PCT have the strategic assistance it needs to deliver what we want? And if not, should it start again?) ." Mrs Stevens continued: "As a member of Surrey County Council's executive, I know only too well what it's like to have to make hard decisions about change within a totally unfair government funding formula. However, Surrey CC is taking a joined-up view about change. Importantly, our objective is to maintain and improve the delivery of local services. It is hard. "This conflicts with the approach from health. I am not convinced that a joined up approach has been made to the thorny issue of saving money. "We were told that the proposals are not about management, only services - but it is my experience that you can only sustain local services if you ensure 'back office' services such as finance and HR, workforce planning, the purchase of goods/services, processes and systems all change together. "The relatively small PCT is being forced to find its own solution, when what is needed is proper analysis of how resources are deployed across the strategic area/county, with the specific objective of meeting locally sensitive need. "In relatively remote Haslemere, that means the objective should be to develop the care-centre approach and retain flexible beds." Mrs Stephens added: "The meeting heard that the strategic position is to reduce beds because: a) people only use hospital beds three times in a lifetime, and b) fewer than 30 beds is clinically difficult to manage. "This is nonsense.The Strategic Health Authority has made a fundamental flaw here. It is simply no good whatsoever averaging our bed use (three times in a lifetime). Are we to assume that that we get a life quota ? No one in Haslemere is a number - and no one wants to be a prisoner of this false assumption. "The PCT /SHA cannot on the one hand claim that there are technological advances which help local hospitals - eg digital X-rays - and on the other hand claim that that 30 is a magic number. Haslemere Hospital bed prices are efficient. More importantly, they are effective. "It is not possible to treat everyone at home, it is expensive, and it does not appear that options on this have been worked up properly. "The PCT needs to recognise that formulas can be for fools - and that Haslemere is not taken in," warned Mrs Stephens.
