The Governing Body of the Isle of Wight Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has today (Thursday) formally accepted the recommendations of the Local Care Board in relation to the future of acute hospital-based services for the Isle of Wight.
Under the now-accepted Option 4 plan, 11% of current hospital activity will be transferred to the mainland meaning around 3,500 patients will be treated on the other side of the Solent. All Level 3 NICU babies and all critical care patients with a length of stay over 24 hours will be transferred to Southampton or Portsmouth, as will all high risk and high complexity procedure patients undergoing emergency surgery.
The proposed changes, which were announced last week, are to ensure that Isle of Wight residents have health outcomes as good as any other NHS patient living in other parts of the country.
It has been agreed that no service changes will be made until clinicians are satisfied that the most robust processes are in place to support the safety of patients being transferred to, or retrieved from, the mainland.
CCG Governing Board members have recognised that travelling off the Island can, at times, be difficult, stressful, and costly for both patients and those who care for them. Keeping this burden to a minimum will be a central concern in the next phase of work when more detailed discussions about services begin to take place.
Dr Michele Legg, the chair of the CCG Governing Body, said:
“This is about trying to get the balance right – we want to ensure that nobody has to make difficult journeys for hospital care unless they absolutely have to, but at the same time we must also ensure that Island residents can get access to the best, safest care when they need it.
“To try to strike that balance, we want to see more routine care provided to a high quality on the Island so that we limit unnecessary travel. But we also accept that, for a small number of patients with certain complex conditions, they will receive better care and results from their treatment from larger, more specialist teams than those we have based on the Island. These are teams that are performing multiple procedures every day rather than several times a year and who have access to specialist equipment and staff.
Article continues below this advertisement “Fundamentally, we believe the right approach is to keep hospital care convenient whenever possible but that sometimes getting access to the best possible specialist care must be the overriding priority.”
Today’s decision marks an important milestone but is by no means the final step in this process. Over the coming months, these proposals will need to be further developed and refined with local professionals, partner NHS organisations, stakeholders and residents.
The specific plans will also be considered by NHS England, and will then be subject to a formal process of public consultation, likely to be towards the end of the year.
The papers for the meeting can be read in full here.
Vix Lowthion, spokesperson for the IW Green Party has said:
“This announcement must be deeply concerning for islanders. Whilst there is clearly a role that technology can play to reduce some needless travelling, and the ambition for health services to be accessed in the local community from our own homes is a worthy one, be under no illusion. This Conservative Government have been moving for years to weaken our NHS so that the private sector can encroach on it even more. This has been Jeremy Hunt’s plan all along. And we cannot stand for it.
“The Green Party has always campaigned for a publicly run NHS – both myself and Caroline Lucas MP visited last year and toured around the Emergency Department. We saw first hand the pressures our doctors and staff face. They are wonderful, and like many public service workers are doing their utmost under very difficult circumstances.
“I urge all islanders to be fully engaged in the public consultation on these cuts. Members of every political party and the wider public must work together on a non party political platform to fight these appalling plans most effectively. It is OUR NHS – it belongs to the people, and we won’t let it go without a fight. “
