Stop Queen Victoria Hospital Merger and protect Specialist Services

The pioneering surgery QVH is famous for is at risk of being lost forever should a merger be approved.

The multiple mergers between NHS hospitals occurring in the last decade have commonly resulted in hidden and unchallenged loss of services. This risk is posed to QVH specialist services this time.

It has been proposed that QVH merges with a super-sized trust Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WSHT) and Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust (BSUH), whose focus is providing local services for people living in Sussex ONLY.

QVH is a specialist NHS trust that sits in Sussex. Unlike district general hospitals that only serve the local population, QVH provides specialist services for patients living in a much wider area - Kent, Surrey, Sussex and the rest of the UK.

The services under threat include specialist breast cancer free flap reconstruction surgery (QVH performs 10% of all of the total cases in the UK), specialist eye operations (QVH set up the first UK Eye Bank and performs hundreds of complex corneal surgery on adults and children each year), facial palsy services (QVH is the largest centre in the UK), complex hand surgery (QVH performs reattachment of fingers and thumbs traumatically amputated), head and neck cancer surgery (QVH is the 4th largest unit in the UK), orthodontics (QVH is again the 4th largest treatment unit in the UK) and complex surgery for all types of skin cancer including melanoma.

For more information about this campaign please visit - http://sossqvh.co.uk/