A top health boss has insisted that changes at a hospital are not as severe as campaigners have claimed.

Stephen Eames, chief executive of the North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust, was presented with a list of withdrawn services from the West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven at a public meeting earlier this month.

At the meeting, which saw 400 people gather at the town’s United Reformed Church, he assured the crowd he would look into services on the list.

At a meeting of the trust board, he said: “I said I would look into the list as soon as possible and this is now available to the public.’’

The list, compiled by health campaigners, included services they said had been removed from the hospital. 

This included post mortems, orthopaedic trauma, dermatology and medical records.


Stephen Eames Mr Eames’s response states in areas such as ophthalmology emergencies there are “in fact more consultants working in ophthalmology at WCH as the consultants from the Cumberland Infirmary all do one full day each at the WCH.’’

In the area of gynaecology, he said the West Cumberland continues to carry out many procedures and a new hysteroscopy outpatient service was introduced at the hospital last year. 

Stroke and rehab services were also on the withdrawn list.

Mr Eames responded saying: “One of the proposals being discussed is to develop a hyper-acute stroke unit at the CIC [Cumberland Infirmary] alongside acute stroke services at both hospital sites and enhanced stroke rehab services.

“No changes have been made to stroke services.’’

Included in the list was “all general surgery’’ which in 2013 saw centralised care move to the Cumberland Infirmary. 

This includes “high risk’’ surgery requiring complex operations.

However, Mr Eames commented: “It should be noted that some emergency procedures can be carried out safely at WCH and the trust is in the process of moving some surgery back to Whitehaven.’’

The list is now available online at a link on the homepage of www.ncuh.nhs.uk