Fighting to Save Crucial Children's Hospital Services - Have Your Say

My latest monthly article for the Times and Citizen newspaper was on the topic of services for children at Bedford Hospital, and in particular the decision of the NHS decision-makers to respond to a problem over the supervision of junior doctors by launching a review of whether paediatric services should be removed from our local hospital altogether.

In the article I highlighted the fact that reducing paediatric services at hospitals like Bedford was a recommendation of the discredited, abandoned Healthier Together programme, which the new NHS Commissioning Group have pledged to take forward. There is a real concern that the dreadful current crisis of lost services, which was caused by problems with the supervision of junior doctors, is being used to pursue an agenda of permanent cuts to the services available locally for children. Public consultation on the review of services to be available will take place over the winter, and I am encouraging everyone who cares about the future of our local hospital to look at proposals as they emerge and to make sure that they have their say, loud and clear.

For those who didn't see it in the paper itself, here's the text of the article:

"Back in July, when the loss of vital children's services from Bedford Hospital was announced, I warned in this column that NHS Commissioners must not use this crisis as an opportunity to pursue an ongoing agenda of reducing services at our local hospital. Sadly, it has become clear that this is exactly what they are doing.

The devastating current service cuts were due to the withdrawal of junior doctors over the issue of their supervision. Local families dealing with the impact will have expected the NHS to be working together over the summer to remedy the supervision problem and get services back safely and swiftly. Instead, the Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group is throwing the very existence of the services locally into question and is reviewing which services are to be provided for children.

The ongoing task for the NHS should be to improve safety, patient care and outcomes at Bedford Hospital. It should not be to seek to take services away altogether. Yet the decision-makers threaten to use the narrow but important issue of management failures over supervision as a reason to remove local hospital services for children permanently. This would be a travesty. It would also further weaken Bedford Hospital as a whole.

Reducing services such as paediatrics at hospitals like Bedford was the aim of the discredited former 'Healthier Together' programme, which targeted small general hospitals for severe downgrading. The BCCG has previously committed itself to taking this programme forward.

We cannot let this happen as a community. The Council's health scrutiny committee has resolved that the BCCG's review of paediatric services is so substantial in its implications for local services that a public consultation must take place. Consultation will take place over the winter. I am calling on everyone who cares about the future of local children's health services and Bedford Hospital as a whole to take part and make your voice heard loud and very, very clear.

Dave Hodgson

Mayor of Bedford Borough"