Re-Open A&E local services in the North East

Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director for England has opened a £75 million super hospital in Northumberland. It is his vision of the future for all hospitals in the U.K.

Sir Bruce explained: “This is all about ensuring patients with complicated needs or life threatening conditions get to a centre with the appropriate expertise in place.The challenges facing A&E services across the country are immense and OUR VISION FOR THE FUTURE is very much in line with what Northumbria Healthcare have already been developing with the opening of the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital to look after THOSE WITH SERIOUS, LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCIES." (Please see photo / http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-whistleblower-fears-patients-die-6875670 .)

“It is testament to the clinical teams at Northumbria, who began thinking about their NEW MODEL OF EMERGENCY CARE many years ago, that the North East is now well ahead of other parts of the NHS in making THE NATIONAL VISION for urgent and emergency care a reality for patients." (See photo.)

“I very much look forward to returning to the North East to see first-hand progress with the hospital which will be at the forefront of emergency medicine.”

My name is Martin Jackson and I work for a North East Ambulance service and I would like to invite Bruce back to the North East to see first-hand the progress.

At least 3 local A & E units, from North Tyneside to Hexham have now changed into 24/7 'Urgent care centres'.

This super hub which you have created may work for parcels or pizza delivery but we are talking here about peoples’ lives.

This is one result of your vision for the future of all hospitals...

120 mile emergency round trip passing Berwick, Alnwick, Ashington and Cramlington Hospitals.
This is a fact which can be verified by the Ambulance service.
The Ambulance service uses a TerraFix system. It is a sat. nav. which logs the location and time of every ambulance in the North East.

We had just cleared at your new super-hospital in Cramlington and got a shout to a sick baby. Driving in fog up the A1 on blues and twos 60 miles north to Berwick hospital. The infant was in a hospital with a mild case of croup. The Berwick hospital could not cope and wanted the child to be seen at Cramlington. We blue lighted the infant to Cramlington and fortunately arrived before 11 o'clock because paediatric A & E closes at 11.

If the call had been life threatening we would have had to continue an extra 20 minutes to Newcastle.

This must raise several serious questions.

My main question is to Jeremy Hunt and Sir Bruce Keogh:
If this was your child with meningitis, would you be happy with this service?

A 2 hour stretcher wait before even being booked in? This is happening NOW.
This is a fact which can be verified by the ambulance service TerraFix system.

Thinking about the "Golden Hour", so crucial to stroke patients.
This is your NHS.
Is this what you want?
This is not the desolate North East.
Please take a second to stand up and be counted.
Please click this petition and feel good for the rest of the day.
Thank you!
martin
The views expressed in this petition do not necessarily reflect the views of the North East Ambulance service.