Hospitals to stay says Trust director

Jim Davey, operations director for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, assured the League of Friends of Bexhill Hospital at its annual meeting.

"It's nonsense. It won't happen. They are too busy."

Mr Davey said his starting-point had to be a "huge thank you" of behalf of East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust for the very real contribution the league made to the running of Bexhill Hospital and of the Conquest Hospital in Hastings.

"Running through your list of achievements, it is quite amazing how much has been donated.

"The equipment that has been donated to Bexhill Hospital, for example, has enabled the day surgery unit here to provide equipment which enables patients to have operations in Bexhill without the need to travel to the Conquest."

Mr Davey said he had no illusions why he had been invited.

"I guess you would like to ask me questions about the public consultation and indeed about the direction of our local hospitals and in particular Bexhill's.

"I will be happy to lay myself open to any questions and discussion and I will be as honest as I can from my knowledge bearing in mind the consultation is being provided by the Primary Care Trust, not the acute trust.

"I am aware of the concerns of local residents wanting to access local health care services. Indeed, I am a Bexhill resident with children on my own and I am equally concerned in wanting to access local services to local people."

Answering the point raised that the status quo for full maternity services in both the Conquest and Eastbourne hospitals was not an option offered in the public consultation, Mr Davey said there was no question about loss of either hospital.

Consultation was purely about the future of maternity services.

"The reason why the status quo is not an option is that two things that have come together in close parallel.

"One is about the Working Time Directive - that's the maximum number of hours medical staff are allowed to work.

"Previously, there was a high rate of doctors on call at night and working throughout the day.

"With the Working Time Directive, all senior medical staff are limited to 40 working hours a week.

"So to maintain services on both sites you would have to have a much higher number of doctors.

"We would have to have double the number of doctors at Hastings and at Eastbourne."

Mr Davey, whose 22-year NHS career began as a nurse at Bexhill, said: "Not only is there the cost aspect, there is the question of whether we would be able to recruit the number of trained doctors.

"The second aspect is the way doctors are trained. It's called 'call-minding medical grid.' These two aspects together do not allow the required number of doctors to be provided on both sites."

He added: "Realistically, with the number of births we have locally it is just not viable.

"What is important, is that for any service provided you have the right number of patients and the right level of expertise."

He added: "As a health service user, I would want to visit a doctor who was expert in that field and I would rather travel for that than have something more locally on my doorstep.

"I can understand the concern for local services for local people and I think that's fine for general services. But when we are talking about more specific services you have to accept that they cannot all be provided locally."

A lady member made the point that Bexhill had an ageing population, not all of whom had cars.

Mr Davey said: "In the documentation, we are not talking about losing services to Brighton. Any of the services that have fragmented or moved across the district, we have maintained a base for outpatients and day-patients."

He instanced ear, nose and throat services where a low number of patients needed a high number of staff to deal with emergencies.

Specialist ENT services had moved to Eastbourne but the Conquest site had maintained an overnight element, a day-patient element and an outpatient element.

He pledged: "There is NOT going to be widespread movement of any services between the Conquest and Eastbourne.

"Both hospitals are always full - I left there an hour ago. There were 40 patients in the accident and emergency department'¦"

Hospitals were measured by occupancy rates. These should be 85%. Generally, both hospitals topped 90%.

"Those hospitals are viable, necessary and provide services required by both populations.

"If anyone has still got in their thought processes anything about getting rid of wholesale services its nonsense.

"It won't happen. They are too busy."