Threat to Farnham Hospital beds escalates (South West Surrey Liberal Democrats)

South West Surrey Liberal Democrats <info@swsurreylibdems.org.uk>

Threat to Farnham Hospital beds escalates

November 28, 2004 2:47 PM

New plan sees 80% of Farnham's beds to be lost from current use, warns Simon

Simon Cordon is highlighting the threat to Farnham Hospital's beds

Warnings from Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Simon Cordon that beds at Farnham Hospital could come under pressure have taken a turn for the worse in the last week.

Simon warned in the Summer that the Guildford & Waverley Primary Care Trust (PCT) were looking to use beds at Farnham Hospital to partly replace the rehabilitation service currently provided from the 60 bedded Milford Hospital, which they are trying to close.

The PCT admitted that Simon's concern about Farnham patients being "displaced" to the Royal Surrey in Guildford, so that Farnham Hospital could take patients who currently go to Milford Hospital, was true. At the time it was thought that 22 of the 84 beds at Farnham Hospital would be used for this purpose.

Last week at a public meeting in the Memorial Hall, Farnham, the PCT announced the possibility of a new proposal with 50 of Farnham's beds being used to replace beds at Milford Hospital. PCT Chairman Chris Grimes and Chief Executive Elizabeth Slinn admitted that this would mean using existing beds are not any new build. In contrast another alternative, locating all of Milford's beds to the Royal Surrey, said the PCT, would be done with new wards being built.

21 beds at Farnham, Hale Ward, are used by the Surrey & Hants Borders (mental health) Trust for care of elderly psychiatric patients, who were formally at Fleet Hospital and Tanner Ward in the old Farnham Hospital. "This leaves just 63 beds", said Simon who attended the meeting in the Memorial Hall. "These are already fully used by patients being discharged from Frimley Park or by Farnham GPs who admit a patient, often elderly, to avoid an acute or chronic condition occurring. If the PCT take these beds away they will in effect be closing 80% of the beds at Farnham from their current use. We fought to keep Farnham Hospital four years ago not for the PCT now to effectively take it away as a service for local people. I intend to call for this plan to be abandoned straight away".

Simon Cordon speaking to a crowd about Milford Hospital

Saving Milford Hospital (a campaign Simon is leading) will protect Farnham Hospital beds

The PCT argue that Milford Hospital serves all of the Waverley and Guildford population and that it is not unreasonable to look at relocating its services to another hospital within Waverley. "The fact is that during the past year only two patients out of 300 at Milford were from Farnham. I have consistently reminded the PCT that Farnham Hospital operates in conjunction with the Frimley Park health community and Farnham looks to Frimley Park much more than to the Royal Surrey. The PCT keep ignoring this. They should not include Farnham in their calculations. It is separate to the rest to the PCT's area and they should organise services accordingly. Farnham is out of bounds as far as I am concerned to any cost-cutting exercises from the PCT that would seek to generally use Farnham Hospital for patients outside of the Farnham and Frimley catchment area. We established that principle four years ago and we must keep to it".