Work to remove beds from community hospitals to start in months

Peter Rooney, of the NHS North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, told a meeting in Maryport on Friday that the process would take until the end of next year or into early 2019.

However, Dr John Howarth, deputy chief executive of the Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, offered guarantees that the beds would not go until suitable alternative care was in place.

“It’s not a matter of flipping on a switch to take beds and then switching on another to a new service model,” he said.

“What we are saying is there would be no beds removed over winter and nothing before April.”

The Maryport meeting was called by the local health alliance and chaired by Workington MP Sue Hayman.

The partnership’s chief executive, Stephen Eames, attended, giving Maryport campaigners their first chance to question him.

The alliance was told that a proposal from them that the Maryport health budget be given over to local control would not happen.

Mr Eames promised considerable reinvestment in health services in the town however, and he promised transparency in how the health budget would be used in the town.

Dr Howarth added that there was a commitment to the hospital and to its staff.

“We are not closing the hospital,” he said. “We have an investment plan for the hospital and have no plans for any staff redundancies whether nurses, cleaners or catering staff.”

Mr Eames reiterated that.

He said the Naylor report, written by Sir Robert Naylor, looked at using real estate more efficiently across the NHS. “That doesn’t have anything to do with Maryport. We are not closng the hospital here, we are extending it,” he said.

Maryport people have been told that while beds would be removed more clinical services would be introduced to save people having to travel out of town.

Investigations are also continuing to see how local rest homes and nursing homes could be used to fill the void after the removal of hospital beds.