What is the point of the Strategic Health Authority ask the County’s Conservative MPs ?

Conservative MPs in West Sussex have slammed the Strategic Health Authority for the cack-handed and secretive way in which it has handled the consultation over the future of hospital services across Sussex. They were speaking after a meeting with the West Sussex PCT and hospital managers in Worthing on Friday, attended by Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham), Peter Bottomley (West Worthing), Andrew Tyrie (Chichester). Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis & Littlehampton) and Nick Herbert (Arundel South Downs). The comments are also supported by Nicholas Soames and Francis Maude who are due to have a separate meeting with health managers.

The MPs were particularly critical of the way that the SHA have now apparently ‘washed their hands’ of the consultation process and left it up to the PCT to do all the hard work and be the ‘fall guys’ for the difficult decisions being made. Tim Loughton commented:

‘The threat to our hospitals is probably one of the biggest issues to have faced our constituencies since we all became MPs here and yet it is being handled in a monumentally incompetent way which is understandably giving rise to suspicion and fear amongst our constituents. We were led to believe that the SHA were taking the lead in this particularly given the strategic impact of the decisions across county boundaries into Surrey and East Sussex. Now we are told that all queries are being handled by the PCT who will make the important decisions subject to ‘rubber stamping’ by the SHA and approval by the Secretary of State if any decisions are called in by the County Council Health Scrutiny Committee. If the Strategic Health Authority are not taking a strategic lead here then we are entitled to ask ‘what is the point of the SHA?

The SHA have issued an initial consultation document primarily aimed at stakeholders leaving our constituents in the dark as to when they will properly be asked their views about changes to our hospital structures. It is no surprise therefore that everyone has been fearing the worst and signing up to the various campaigns, marches and public meetings organised by the MPs and local councils. We are now told it is unlikely that we shall see a proper public consultation document until well into October by which time we fear that many of the important decisions will have been made behind closed doors.

We are also highly suspicious that many of the discussions are been framed round the need to accommodate Brighton as the major hospital centre in Sussex rather than concentrate services and resources closest to where the people need them most. Surely we need to invest close to where the needs of the population are rather than for the convenience of NHS structures. Despite constant warnings from ourselves and our own please in Parliament the SHA have singularly failed to make the case to Government that in Sussex we are the victims of an unfair funding formula which does not properly take account of age and deprivation costs let alone the cost of living in the south-east. Yet again we are being short-changed by central government and we have been failed by our regional health service managers who should have been making or case forcefully to the Department of Health not just acting as the willing hatchet men.

This whole episode has been handled very badly indeed. Our constituents deserve better and we will continue to work closely with them, medical staff and patient groups, through the KWASH and Save St Richards campaigns and others to make sure that we get a fair deal for West Sussex.’