Department of Health NI proposals to radically change HOW and WHERE the public can ACCESS Accident and Emergency Care, are out for consultation, so the people can agree or disagree to this permanent Change or Withdrawal of Services.

The Urgent and Emergency Care Services Review Consultation 2022* proposes plans to re-organise the current system of ACCESS to Urgent and Emergency Care Services (including Hospitals). It also deals with “how older people and others will be offered treatment in the community to avoid admission or delays in hospital.” The Consultation says changes are needed to help with issues like over-crowded EDS, too many patients waiting over 12 hours.

What will these proposals mean for you and the people of Newry & Mourne, South Down and South Armagh, Banbridge, Armagh etc?

Future services and investment for all Hospitals in NI including Newry’s Area Hospital, Daisy Hill will depend on these new changes.

The Urgent and Emergency Care Consultation Report suggests that future Emergency/ Urgent Care Services should use the “experience gained locally” during the pandemic.
The people will remember that during pandemic THERE WAS NO EMERGENCY SERVICE IN NEWRY under the Southern Trust from 28th March 2020 to 19th October 2020.

The local experience / service was, the Southern Trust CLOSED the Emergency Surgery & Emergency Medical services at Daisy Hill Hospital Type 1 ED in Newry, and Daisy Hill staff were re-deployed –to provide 3 EDs including a children’s ED in Craigavon hospital.

Daisy Hill Acute Hospital in Newry was designated to be one of the 9 Major Acute Hospitals with 24/7 consultant -led Emergency Surgery and  Emergency Medical Services necessary to provide Acute hospital services fairly to everyone no matter where they choose to live in NI in 2003.    

However, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Southern Trust was  the only Health and Social Care Trust in NI to close an acute hospital Type 1 ED. 

Daisy Hill Acute Hospital has also been left out of the NI Critical Care Network, and the Southern Trust Stage 1 and Stage 2 Rebuilding plans, showing little regard for the unscheduled care needs of the large populations Daisy Hill was designated as an Acute Hospital for. 

The Southern Trust consistently LEAVES DAISY HILL HOSPITAL, NEWRY OUT of their necessary Capital Priorities Business plans submitted to the Department of Health.  Because of this -Daisy Hill in Newry City is the only Acute hospital in all of NI waiting on finance for future Redevelopment, especially the  NEW hospital building, which was agreed by the Secretary of State in 2005. 

PROPOSED LOCATIONS FOR URGENT AND EMERGENCY CARE SERVICES

The Department of Health Review and Consultation does not give Names of Locations for Future Urgent and  Emergency services, but instead state they will provide them in the “RIGHT PLACE”.

Newry & District with 159,600 patients has the 2^nd highest number of patients on GP Federation Registers in NI.   We need to tell the Department of Health in this Consultation that based on POPULATION size, DAISY HILL ACUTE HOSPITAL, NEWRY IS THE RIGHT PLACE for Type 1 Consultant-Led Emergency Department with and Emergency Surgery and Emergency Medicine.

The Department of Health NI wants us to tell them if they have left anything out of the Urgent and Emergency Services Consultation Proposals before they finalise the plan.  All views put forward to the Consultation will go directly to the decision makers at the Department of Health; whose responsibility it is to assess the health needs of the population, and to then commission services, based on this. 

STROKE IS A MAJOR 999 EMERGENCY 

Stroke Services are being consulted on again in this consultation, as it is a major Emergency service which we are still told to ring 999 for.   The Bengoa Report inappropriately recommended the Centralisation of Stroke services from Daisy Hill, Newry City to Craigavon.  The result of which was shown in the Department of Health NI Consultation on Reshaping Stroke Services in  2019 when Daisy Hill’s Stroke Unit was unfairly LEFT OUT of all the Options for Location of Acute and Hyper-acute Stroke units.   Craigavon, because of the Bengoa Recommendation as a local Case Study was in ALL of the Options for both Hyper-acute and Acute stroke Units, while Newry’s Daisy Hill was in NONE.

No reply was ever given to any of the 19,000 people in NI who responded to the ‘Reshaping Stroke Services’ Consultation and many objected or gave alternatives to the proposals. This needs to be cleared up NOW as this consultation is in provision of Emergency/Urgent Care for the future.

If you want to make sure you can still access Emergency services at Daisy Hill Acute Hospital in Newry, in the future – This is how we tell them -We are ENTITLED TO IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO 24/7 CONSULTANT-LED EMERGENCY SURGICAL AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES IN DAISY HILL ACUTE HOSPITAL, NEWRY CITY.   You can reply to the Consultation questionnaire online and in writing until 01 July 2022.  (Link below)

More information on this Dept. Of Health NI Consultation will follow shortly on Daisy Hill for Life Facebook page and on this blog Daisy Hill Hospital for life

LINKS
https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/consultations/consultation-review-urgent-and-emergency-care-services-northern-ireland Consultation Documents links

REFERENCE
*Review of Urgent and Emergency Care Services in Northern Ireland – Consultation Report & Strategic Priorities Department of Health Northern Ireland, 2022.

Information on this and other similar topics is also available at the companion Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/daisyhillforlife/ Please Follow or Like the Page to receive updates. Thank you.

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© Daisy Hill for Life on Facebook and http://www.savedaisyhillhospital.com, 2015 – 2022. We welcome sharing of this info and the use of excerpts and links, please give full and clear credit to http://www.savedaisyhillhospital.com and Daisy Hill for Life with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Thank-you.