THE public consultation launched this week on community beds in south Warwickshire has been branded a “farce fit for pantomime season”.
Strong words, but the sentiment is backed by many in the area who say they have seen health services diminish and now there is a consultation on having only 35 community beds when just a few years ago south Warwickshire had 57 inpatient beds located in Shipston, Stratford and Leamington, according to Care Quality Commission figures from 2018. [Update: SWFT say figures are outdated, and that some of these beds are stroke and brain injury rehab beds paid for by NHS England. However when the Herald went to press it was unable to confirm previous numbers of community inpatient beds in south Warwickshire for pre-Covid years.]
In 2019, plans for a new Ellen Badger hospital in Shipston to replace the old ‘unfit for purpose’ one were revealed by South Warwickshire University Foundation Trust. However, when SWFT backtracked on the plans to include a bedded ward it justified its decision by saying bed numbers and locations were subject to a bed review across the south of the county. Most of the old hospital was demolished and the new building is complete – but an old ward has been left and is included as a prospective location of future community hospital beds.
South Warwickshire Community Beds consultation marketing images
After years of prevarication and hold-ups, Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) and SWFT this week are asking the public to decide on the location of beds. However residents have been asked to decide by 14th February, when the consultation ends, between just two options:
Option A – Three sites: Distribute all 35 beds across three sites: Ellen Badger Hospital, Leamington Hospital, and Stratford Hospital. This would reduce the number of beds currently at Stratford Hospital and Leamington Hospital and return up to 12 beds to the Ellen Badger site.
Option B – Two sites: Provide all 35 beds at two sites, Leamington Hospital and Stratford Hospital. The wards would remain the same current size at Leamington Hospital and Stratford Hospital and there would no longer be any beds at the Ellen Badger site.
The health authorities have emphasised that their preference is for option B.
Reacting to the consultation options, former NHS boss and fundraiser for the Shipston hospital, Bryan Stoten, told the Herald: “The number 35 is just plucked out of the air.
“The first point is, both SWFT and the ICB seem to think that this is all about rehab beds – used as a discharge plan from the acute hospitals.
“When I was chairman of the health authority, we made it very clear that the Ellen Badger – and other community hospitals such as Stratford – are about stopping people going into acute hospitals, not about getting them out. It’s not a decamp ward for Warwick Hospital. That was never its purpose.”
He continued: “The numbers don’t make sense – 35 beds spread across the county? In 2000, we had 36 beds in Shipston alone. Amazingly, we are now going to have 35-36 beds for the whole of south Warwickshire.
“My concern is that SWFT don’t even understand what a community hospital does, and neither does the ICB.
South Warwickshire Community Beds consultation marketing images
“It is heartbreaking to see people who don’t even understand the principle of a community hospital are making decisions and doing so quite cynically in a six-week period, cut back from a 12-week period, to try and avoid real examination by the public – those who pay their wages.”
He added: “This is going backwards, not forwards. This isn’t what 21st century medicine was meant to be like. It’s a farce fit for pantomime season.”
Those words were echoed by Alasdair Elliott, chairman of Beds for the Badger. He told the Herald: “The whole situation is farcical. The issue is that this is being labelled a consultation and not a violation. The direction is a foregone conclusion. The real surprise is the insistence on 35 beds. All professional indications are that many more beds are required to just stand still. Future needs are simply not being addressed.”
There has been growing alarm among Stratford residents that they could lose beds if Shipston gets beds back (16 beds were moved to Leamington on a supposedly temporary basis while the new building was constructed).
Mr Elliott blamed health bosses for the way the consultation “cynically divides communities”.
He said: “It is cruel that a public body should use public money to pit local communities against each other. Leamington and Stratford have already been expanded by the beds that came from Shipston.
“It is disappointing to note that the NHS is supporting rural inequalities and the latest penalty for living in rural areas is health. This is the thin end of the wedge. It will be Leamington and Stratford’s execution next in order to balance the books and pay management salaries. There is no attempt to address the inherent problems that are so screamingly obvious.
“We have been trying to open up communication and work with the ICB for many months. We have a number of solutions and we hoped that by working as a team, exploring and refining, we would provide long-term answers. This consultation proves that this ICB fire fights by looking in the rear-view mirror with myopic eyes. A sustainable vision for the future is not on the agenda.”
People can take part in the South Warwickshire Community Hospital Rehabilitation Bed Consultation online at www.happyhealthylives.uk.
There are also a number of in-person events in the form of a drop-in exhibition which details the plans and the background to the potential changes. This includes 21st January, 3pm-4.30pm at Rosebird Community Centre; and 22nd January, 4pm-5.30pm at Shipston Townsend Hall.