10,000 signatures reached
To: Jeremy Hunt (Secretary of State for Health)
Eastbourne DGH: Local Services for Local People
Vote for Option 7.
This would result in Consultant-led Maternity and Paediatric Services at Eastbourne DGH and the Conquest.
Why is this important?
We need our hospital services back.
Maternity and paediatric services at Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) were downgraded a year ago. The local NHS Trust said it was a temporary measure.
Now we are facing a bleak future with these core services likely to be lost forever in Eastbourne.
Why?
In May 2013, the local NHS Trust centralised consultant-led maternity services for the area at the Conquest Hospital in Hastings leaving only a midwifery unit at the DGH. At the same time it stopped overnight care for children at the Eastbourne hospital. We were assured these changes were temporary for 18 months only.
In the meantime, the East Sussex Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), the organisation which commissions NHS services, launched a review of permanent services for maternity, paediatrics and emergency gynaecology in East Sussex.
It drew up six options, none of which include a two-site option for consultant- delivered services. Option 6 (selected by the CCGs) will keep consultant-led services for maternity and paediatrics at the Conquest Hospital. So people in Eastbourne will have to travel to Hastings for this care with an average total transfer time of 1 hour 34 minutes from the DGH to the Conquest. This far exceeds acceptable safety limits for many interventions such as emergency Caesarean sections.
What is our alternative?
Save the DGH launched an alternative proposal for the CCGs to consider alongside its six options. Option 7 keeps consultant-led maternity services, emergency gynaecology and in-patient paediatrics at both hospitals.
Our proposal also maintains a level one special care baby unit and a short stay paediatric assessment unit at the DGH and the Conquest. It also goes further by stating that all core services, like emergency general surgery and emergency orthopaedics which have recently been removed, are needed and should be provided at the DGH. Option 7 maintains all of the services that the IRP stated must remain.
Why do we need Jeremy Hunt's help?
The CCGs made a ruling on permanent changes to services in June and selected Option 6. Then HOSC met on the 28th July and failed to refer the decision back to the Secretary of State. The IRP ruling states that these Consultant-led services must remain in Eastbourne and Hastings and therefore we ask Jeremy Hunt to intervene and enforce the IRP ruling.
People living in Eastbourne deserve a hospital in the town that provides them with the care they need. If maternity and paediatrics are permanently downgraded at the DGH, we will have the most disadvantaged town in the UK for the population size.
Please support us by signing. We need your help!
For more information visit www.savethedgh.org.uk
