Hospital plans under scrutiny

Llanelli Rural Council, in its latest bid to safeguard A & E services at Prince Philip Hospital (PPH) is making preparations for Hywel Dda’s hospital plans to be scrutinised by independent management consultants who specialise in NHS services.

In the latest development, the Council has written to health board Chief Executive, Mr Trevor Purt, seeking further clarification and information over its plans for hospital services, after the board officially launched its 12 week consultation process during the holiday period, on 6 August, 2012.

Council Leader, Cllr Bill Thomas stated “The Council will need to spend some time carefully analysing the consultation documentation, particularly ‘Technical Document 5 – Emergency and Urgent Care’. This is an important document which purports the notion of PPH having a nurse led Local Accident Centre instead of a doctor led A & E service, unlike the other three hospital sites under the umbrella of the health board, where effectively no change to A & E service is being advocated. We fully intend to scrutinise the supporting evidence to ensure there are no gaps or omissions which might prevent us from potentially proceeding with drawing up our own options for A & E services at PPH”.

It was revealed that the Council could not proceed further with its plans until additional clarification and information was provided by the health board about several issues identified in the main consultation document which directly affected the Llanelli area and general service provision at PPH.

Cllr Thomas continued “The Council has challenged the health board to inform the engagement/consultation process with sound, relevant analysis and to make this available for examination immediately. The Council has failed on three separate occasions to obtain patient data from the health board to put forward any potential counter proposal. Given the implications for the population of Llanelli it is vital the debate is informed with reliable analysis of both the potential economic and healthcare outcomes both of which were lacking in the engagement process. We expected the approach to have been patient led and built up from an assessment of patient needs”.

The Council has also taken collaborative steps with its sister council Llanelli Town Council to write to Mr A Warlow, Chief Officer, Hywel Dda Community Health Council (CHC), about the current situation.

Cllr Thomas added “The Council’s previous attempts to obtain information from the health board and the ambulance service have been frustrating to say the least. In the Council’s opinion responses have been evasive, slow and do not give the impression of promoting sound principles of transparency and public accountability; as the watchdog it is important the CHC is aware of the prevailing circumstances and of our experiences to date. We have expressed our initial concern that the proposals do not go into enough detail to effectively comment and the lack of detail is a concern. We reserve the right to lobby the CHC at some point going forward especially if we feel proposals do not safeguard the interests of the people we serve”.

In writing to the CHC, the Councils have asked it to clarify and explain its role in the consultation process. In other developments the Council has sent a further invitation for an Ambulance Service representative to attend at one of its Council meetings, whilst pursuing a full response to its previous information requests. It also hopes to participate in a joint meeting with local GPs about hospital proposals which Llanelli Town Council is organising. The consultation plans will be discussed by the Rural Council at its next meeting to be held on 11 September, 2012.