Plea to patients denied place at town's hospital with empty beds

A CAMPAIGNING former nurse says she has been left "totally unconvinced" by official reassurances over the number of beds at Goole Hospital.

Concerns were raised after two wards at the hospital were reduced from 18 to 15 beds.

Josie Head met interim chief executive Karen Jackson along with councillors and an MP at a meeting to discuss the situation.

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Mrs Head is now urging anyone who has been denied a bed at Goole Hospital in the last two years to get in touch.

The hospital, which has to save 15m, says the beds have not been permanently axed and if necessary they can be bought back into use.

Mrs Head got involved after her mother's GP wanted to send the 84-year-old to Scunthorpe Hospital, rather than Goole, in June.

She said: "I wanted my mother to go to her local hospital which I know is first class. She's 84, she's blind and she was very much afraid.

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"When I stood my ground within 20 minutes there was a bed available. I went with her to hospital and discovered 10 empty beds on the ward.

"I have people ringing me up saying that they are on a ward at Scunthorpe but want to be transferred to Goole and were being denied on the grounds that there were no beds available. I have never denied that there are some conditions where the patient is better off in a bigger hospital where there are more specialist consultants, but we are talking about ordinary medical conditions, which are treated at Goole and are treated well.

"My information is that they want to amalgamate 15 medical beds and 15 rehabilitation wards and run them as one ward.

"Six beds were taken out of the equation two years ago, leaving just 18, and recently another three went."

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Mrs Head said: "They have been asked to provide certain information to us and I have been requested to provide certain information to them.

"I want to hear from anyone who was sent out of Goole in the last two years who could have been treated in Goole."

Tory MP for Brigg and Goole Andrew Percy was also at the meeting. He said: "We have been assured that there isn't anything sinister going on and that in actual fact the (NHS) trust is looking to treat more people on surgical wards at Goole.

"We also received assurances about staff numbers and consultant posts.

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"But we do have some further questions which we are going to raise at another meeting in September regarding medical wards.

"In the meantime the trust has agreed to respond to us in full about the concerns we raised on the day and put in writing their assurances.

"What they have asked us to do is to provide any details of patients being refused access to Goole Hospital and I would urge anyone to whom that's occurred to contact me at my office."

A spokesman for the trust said decisions about where to refer a patient were made by GPs and ambulance staff.

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He said: "I'm not aware of any patient that has been sent from Goole to another hospital by us without there being a clinical reason. We can't be responsible for decisions other organisations make."

He continued: "It was a productive meeting with the local MP, councillors and Mrs Head and we have agreed to work together in the interests of the patients of Goole and district.

"We have no firm plans to alter the bed configuration at Goole."

In the last 10 years the amount of time patients admitted as emergencies stayed in hospital has reduced from 5.5 days to 4.6 days because of improvements in care.

Mrs Head can be contacted on 01405 780866. She needs the information by the end of August.

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