Hospital campaigners lobby health board members

* KLHS campaigners lobby health board memb ers earlier today.

Members of Keep Llangollen Health Services (KLHS) campaign group today (Thursday) attended the Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board meeting in Wrexham to lobby members, arguing the case for Llangollen Hospital.

They handed leaflets to each board member on arrival and discussed the proposals with them.

 

The board’s vice chair Dr Lyndon Miles and director of primary, community and mental health services Geoff Lang came out to discuss the proposals with the campaigners.

Mabon ap Gwynfor, of KLHS, said: “This was an opportunity to lobby board members directly. We gave them plain and simple leaflets, which set out what the board is proposing using their own words and what our concerns were.

“The board’s document, Health Care in North Wales is Changing, has only one page on Llangollen, and in it they only make two promises – the first is that the GP surgery will move to a new primary care centre and the other is that the hospital will close, losing our nurse-led minor injuries unit and the hospital beds. Everything else is up in the air with no guarantees or certainties.

“It says a new centre ‘could be completed by 2015’ but this is subject to a successful bid for money which is currently unavailable, planning permission, finding an appropriate site and all sorts of other uncertainties that the board has no control over. It then goes on to say that minor injuries services may be provided by GPs.

 

“This isn’t good enough as we are facing losing what is currently a nurse-led minor injuries service.

 

"Will the GPs have the resources to carry out minor injuries services as well as their regular surgery work?

 

"Then finally the document says care in a community-based bed should be provided from local care homes, but we know that there is not enough beds in the Dee Valley. In addition, care homes are not required to meet the same clinical standards as the NHS, let alone the questions about who is expected to pay for this private service.

“It was very revealing that Mr Lang could not give any guarantees that the funding needed for the health centre would be in place.

 

"That’s a huge concern given the capital funding cuts the Welsh Government has already seen and it’s unlikely to improve significantly in the coming years under the present regime.”

The consultation is coming to an end on October the 28. Anybody wishing to contribute can do so online at www.bcuhbjointhedebate.wales.nhs.uk emailjointhedebate@wales.nhs.uk or send comments on a letter to Join The Debate, BCU Health Board, Freepost RSZZ-SGXY-TSEZ, LL17 0JA.