I would like to thank Sean Duggan for his excellent article entitled "Is this really local democracy in action?".

In this article he explained how "the Better Services Better Value (BSBV) review promised to be a model of local decision making in action about that most vital of issues - the fate of local hospitals."

In fact it has turned out to be completely the opposite - the BSBV and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG’s) have been acting out a farce which would be laughable if it was not so serious.

Some, yet to be identified scoundrels, have for their own ends, planned every step of the BSBV process to arrive at their preconceived goal to reduce the number of acute "centres" from 5 to 3.

The preferred option resulting from this process will be to remove Accident and Emergency (A&E), maternity and other essential services from Epsom and St Helier Hospitals. The seven hundred local people who attended the open Surrey Downs CCG board meeting held at Epsom Grandstand on the 17th of May left the board members in no doubt that what was being proposed was totally unacceptable and it would be challenged at every opportunity!

Today Friday, I needed to attend the A&E at Epsom Hospital to have an x-ray and like Dr Ted Baker whose letter was published last week I was greatly impressed with the professionalism of all the staff.

At this very difficult time the morale of the staff appeared to be high and they were all concentrating on getting the job done in an efficient and caring way. While waiting my turn in the reception area the triage nurse appeared at the desk and announced to everyone present that a number of ambulances had arrived with emergencies and this meant that the staff would be fully occupied with these cases for some time to come and we would have to wait our turn.

Perhaps members of the BSBV review team and Surrey Downs CCG board members should spend some time within A&E at Epsom to understand how their proposals will save lives. If the proposed changes come to pass as a result of the very expensive BSBV review one wonders how the resulting 3 hospitals with A&E will cope with the increased work load.

Several years ago when St Helier downgraded the A&E facility at Epsom a considerable amount of money was spent relocating and upgrading the A&E at Epsom.

Now there is a real possibility that all this investment will be scrapped and the population served by Epsom General Hospital will have to pay for the relocation of services to St George’s Hospital. It has been claimed that this relocation of services will cost £300m but exactly where will this money come from? It is almost certain that the Surrey Downs CCG will be expected to pay for a large part of this - after all we are going to benefit from this change - A&E & maternity closer to home, reduced ambulance waiting and journey times to hospital.

Better public transport to hospital for all concerned. This will result in less money being available within Surrey Downs CCG for treatment of patients.

Bob Mackison
Via email

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