KEEP THE HORTON GENERAL
Our hospital provides vital services to Banbury's growing population.
We're about to lose those services.
Did you know....
The Davidson inquiry
The current womens', childrens', trauma and emergency services are in place as a result of the Davidson inquiry in 1996. These were identified as "essential" in meeting the needs of the population of North Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties.
Since then, the population has grown, traffic has grown and travel costs have increased. The need for these services is even greater now than it was then.
When the ORH Trust took over the Horton, they undertook not to reduce any of these services.
Tony Baldry's petition raised 40,000 signatures from residents in the Horton catchment area
It was
delivered to Downing Street, who forwarded it to the ORH Trust.
We're doing our own petition too - why not download
a form and collect signatures?
Officially, the public has to be consulted before any decisions are made
The consultation
period was just 90 days, but has now been extended by 6 weeks, ending on 13th
October
You can download the consultation document on our "what
can I do?" page, or you can call the ORH Trust on 01865 228932 or
01295 229058 and they have to send you a copy.
One type of major stakeholder is / are the 5 Oxfordshire primary care trusts (PCTs). The 5 PCTs have being merged into one, which will be based in Oxford, in October. The official PCT response to the consultation will come from the single Oxfordshire PCT, predictably based in Oxford.
The JR sends patients to the Horton when they're overstretched
For example, in January - March 2006, 651 children were admitted to the childrens' ward. Of these, 166 came from outside Cherwell Vale - and 24 came from the JR. Other departments also report taking in patients from Oxford when the JP is full.
The unit was "on-take" for neighbouring hospitals on 137 shifts between January and October 07 - 87 of these shifts, they were taking children from the JR because it was full.
Animals are now guaranteed better treatment than humans in North Oxfordshire
The Royal College of Veterinarians stipulates that vets on call should live no further than 30 minutes drive from their emergency centre. There seems to be no such rule for humans. Pauline Richards, veterinarian from Epwell, says "The fact that animals are more tightly regulated than people should give cause for concern"
Last year, almost 1600 babies were born at the Horton
Only 30% of these births were midwife-led. The other 70% would have needed admission to the JR - probably more, because it is likely all first time mothers will have to go to the JR, whether they want to or not.
Of the 379 babies were born at the Horton in the first 3 months of 2006, 43 were admitted to the Special Care Baby Unit
Emergency transfers
Independent studies have shown that it could take up to 5 hours to transfer a sick child from Banbury to the JR
An ambulance
takes at least 30 minutes door to door. That's a guaranteed 30 minutes delay
to life saving treatment
160 women per year are expected to be put through the trauma of ambulance
transfer when something goes wrong during labour. An inter-unit transfer
takes on average, 2.8 hours.
Job Cuts
600 NHS jobs are being cut across Oxfordshire
Cleaners at the Horton have already lost their jobs
Traveling to the JR
Traveling
to the JR by car can take more than an hour, making evening visits difficult
Traveling to the JR by public transport will take even longer. For people
without access to a car, this will be a major burden. A round trip from villages
outside Banbury, assuming a journey is timed to perfection and no connections
missed, would take over 4 hours (plus the visit itself)
Traffic between Banbury and Oxford will inevitably increase, causing more pollution, and disruption to those living en-route. Local councils are responsible for reducing car use, so this is not a great example of joined up thinking in government.The ambulatory care model / air ambulance "solution"
The "improved" service at the Horton relies on an untested ambulatory care model, with ambulances needing to make many trips each night. Prompt care relies upon an ambulance being available when it is needed and this is clearly not always going to be the case. Even if an ambulance is available, for some people in the area with acute conditions, this is irrelevant - they need treatment so promptly that they would not survive the journey.
The air ambulance solution that was announced at the public consultation meeting in St Mary's is no solution at all. The air ambulance, rather than being dedicated to the Horton, serves 3 counties and is based near Reading, and it only flies in daylight hours. Furthermore, it is run by a charity and staffed by volunteers. We applaud their work, but Banbury needs a securely funded, 24 hours a day solution.
Capio Orthapaedic Centre disgrace
The Keep the Horton General team has discovered some disgraceful facts and figures about Banbury's new private orthapaedic treatment centre.
1) The ORH Trust is committed to paying Capio £1.85m every 13 weeks, no matter how few operations they perform. That 's enough to keep all the threatened services going for a year.
2) The Capio Centre is running well under capacity - it has been described by patients as "like a ghost ship"
3) Capio refuse to treat anyone under the age of 18, people with various conditions, people who live on their own or who haven't got a phone.
4) Capio only work 9 to 5, so if their patients have problems after hours, the NHS has to sort out the problems. But Capio still get paid.
5) The privately funded Capio centre is completely unnecessary as the Horton's orthapaedic centre was meeting all it's targets
6) The Capio centre is just one example of the misguided and costly Private Finance Initiative that the NHS is pursuing. Billions of pounds are going into the pockets of firms whose intention is to make a profit out of the NHS. If you want to find out more, visit www.keepournhspublic.com
Links:
Horton victory - everything about our successful campaign
