Fears have been voiced for the welfare of some of the most vulnerable residents in north Norfolk if health chiefs push ahead with plans to remove beds from a local healthcare unit.
Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts staged a roadside demonstration outside Benjamin Court in Cromer on Monday ahead of a petition against the proposals being presented to the Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust on Tuesday.
Placard-waving campaigners warned that removing beds from the Roughton Road site would place increasing strain on the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and put lives at risk.
Retired doctor Andy Slovak, formerly of the Midlands and now living in Cromer, said: “These sort of intermediate beds, where you’ve got bed blocking in the main hospital, you desperately need these sort of beds where you can decant people and they get decent care and they can gradually get pushed into the community.
“What happens if you just push them out and into their home is they are back in hospital like a set of rotating doors. It does wonders for the statistics but it does nothing for the patients.
“The other place where we lived pulled exactly the same stunt, they got very vague about what they were going to do and then the next thing they did was to actually close it down and then they flogged it off to private people for redevelopment.”
And he added: “I’ve got a reasonable expectation that this is exactly the same as what they are going to do here.”
Benjamin Court provides professional NHS support in both the 18 bed ward and on-site clinics in Cromer. And, with reports of queuing ambulances outside the A&E in Norwich, campaigners claim facilities at the local healthcare unit should actually be expanded.
But Norfolk Coalition Against the Cuts, who have criticised the lack of public consultation, claim health chiefs wants to save money by caring for more people in their homes using volunteers with only six days’ training.
Joining the demonstration, Martin Booth, representing North Norfolk Trade Union Council, said: “We are very fearful that this actually means a huge reduction in a vital service for people.
“There are 18 beds in there at the moment but we gather there are 18 that are empty as well. They should be reopening any empty beds, they are desperately needed – Norfolk and Norwich Hospital is under enormous pressure to discharge patients.
“They are having a review of their services all across north Norfolk and they look like cutting back all the way across the board, this is the worrying thing.
“People who need that kind of service will be stuck with minimal or no service. they are talking about training volunteers to help, with six days training – that’s just appalling really.”
He added: “What we are saying is they should keep the existing facilities at Benjamin Court and actually expand on them. More facilities for supporting people who are leaving hospital or shouldn’t be in somewhere like Norfolk and Norfolk (University Hospital) or need more than just care at home.”
Terry Skyrme, from Cromer, revealed he has already seen the devastating consequences cuts to the local health service has had on the region. He was involved in the launch of the Save Mental Health Services campaign in Norfolk.
Mr Skyrme said: “Deaths of people that are known to the mental health service have doubled in the last three years because people are not getting the right care or treatment.
“Often there are no beds available in Norfolk and people are being sent all across Britain, hundreds of miles away from their families when they are a psychiatric emergency – it’s not acceptable.
“We used to have a community mental health team in north Norfolk but that was closed because of the £40 million cuts imposed in 2013. It’s now in Hellesdon.”
The North Norfolk Clinical Commissioning Group announced in March that it plans to move away from hospital-based services to provide more care in the community.
Cromer Town Council collected hundreds of signatures in a petition to be presented to the governing body ahead of its board meeting in Aylsham, with a final decision due in July.
A spokesperson for NHS North Norfolk CCG said: “The CCG has been actively engaging with members of the public and stakeholders of Benjamin Court. The CCG sees the unit as continuing to play an important role in local health care, this includes providing more care for people in a community setting via a supported care model. The model aims to prevent people being admitted to acute hospitals unnecessarily and to help people stay living independently.”
Article originally published by EDP24
