howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The Dover Society have been pressing for this over a long period. There was a meeting of the Clinical Commissioning group at the Ark this afternoon and they asked how much of money from the sale of the old hospital will be spent here.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Just received by me and not very reassuring.
The Agenda was lengthy ,as is usual for these meetings, and consisted of 463 pages.
As circulated to you I had raised in writing the Dover Society concern re the failure to have Intermediate care/ Step up Step down facilities in Dover and the fact that land adjacent to the existing hospital was being auctioned that once sold would not enable any enhanced facilities at the Hospital (Polyclinic). Also who will benefit from the £1.45 million secured at auction
The immediate response was quoted as under. The site was transferred from East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust( EKHUFT) to KCC but on questioning the CCG they could not say what KCC paid (if any) to EKHUFT. KCC have disposed of the land as “surplus” as in the statement below. The provision of dementia facilities is most welcome but there is no mention of Intermediate care facilities and will be as stated in the e-mail “we are pursuing other care bed provision nearby to meet needs of local people”.
I challenged this and it was stated such facilities would not be required at the Buckland site and will be encompassed in local care homes. The reason given being there is a high vacancy level of beds in care homes within the District and CCG will work with these “private providers”. Whilst this may be acceptable for the older patient I again raised the question that such facilities (within a geriatric environment) are not suitable for younger people who require recuperation following operation at William Harvey/QEQM and this was recognised although no explanation as to how this could be solved. I also raised the concern that Care Homes do not have qualified medical nursing staff, this was countered by CCG that “training would be given” I said this was not satisfacory based on media exposure in respect to quality of care in many care homes and asked for this to be recorded within the minutes of the meeting.
I made it clear that the Dover Society would continue to seek quality health facilities for its community in particular the question of suitable “Intermediate Health ” care that without such facility creates “bed blocking” at William Harvey/QEQM that recently showed 15,125 “bed days” lost at hospitals within the SE England in the last year. Also Dover with 37% of households having no private transport requires relatives visiting William Harvey/QEQM to use public transport at high cost and lengthy journey times.
Other interesting items to note:
1.Currently the CCG practitioners current caseload is 1 GP per 2,500 patients. and with 20% of the GP workforce due to retire in the next 5 years could result in 1 GP per 3,000 Patients. Great difficulty in recruiting GP’s to Dover, this is common in most areas in the UK with high deprivation levels and consequential higher demand on health facilities.
2. Cancer. target times for treatment has improved but MRI scanner at Canterbury stopped working ???
3.KCC/EKHUFT Complaints. Only 57% of complaints resolved
4. Budget savings of £7.5 million required in 2017/2018
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
The resulting waffle from KCC, make of it what you will.
Gary Cooke, KCC’s Cabinet Member for Corporate and Democratic Services, said: “KCC has been working closely with the East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust, the South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group, together with Dover District Council and Charlie Elphicke MP to help identify future health needs for the Dover area and, in particular, requirements in relation to the former Buckland Hospital site.
“We are working on plans to provide 30 dementia village beds on the Buckland site and we are pursuing other care bed provision nearby to meet the needs of local people.
“The only parts of the Buckland site which are proposed for disposal are those which we know will not be required to support other health and care projects that we have identified.
“Having clarified what land is required we are able to release and sell the surplus, and in so doing make savings in the substantial security and other holding costs that otherwise would continue to be a significant cost to the ratepayers of Kent.”
