Lincolnshire’s hospitals trust has revealed its latest plans for services in the county, but campaigners say the move has sparked “grave concerns” and left unanswered questions.
United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust advertised its latest consultation on Friday evening, which will include an examination of Grantham Hospital, and gave people until Tuesday lunchtime to respond – just one full working day.
Campaigners said there were still questions to be answered about the plans. They also said the time-scale for response was “too short” and could result in some residents being left out, however, trust bosses said the survey had been part of an ongoing process since December.
ULHT says it will consider its plans to restore services at an extraordinary board meeting on Tuesday, March 16, at 2pm.
It said an independent review had been carried out over the last nine months into the changes, which included the opening of a 24/7 Urgent Treatment Centre.
“[The changes] enabled the trust to continue to deliver essential cancer and urgent surgery to the people of Lincolnshire during the pandemic in an environment protected from COVID-19,” said a statement.
Under the latest plans:
Existing services at Grantham will remain. The trust added two theatres to allow for more surgery and will keep some chemotherapy day services on the site. It says it is “keen” to restore day case cancer services to Boston and Lincoln soon.
Sexual health services, some outpatient and community mental health services, children’s and women’s outpatients and dental services run by NHS trusts will return to the Grantham site.
Outpatient, diagnostic and therapy services will return with “very limited need for any interaction with the other patient services on site”. A dedicated medical and surgical rehabilitation ward is also planned.
Emergency care services changed again to include a daytime (previously 8am to 6.30pm) A&E, a same-day emergency care unit, an emergency admissions unit, access to diagnostic services and integrated support from community teams.
An enhanced out-of-hours primary care service at the front of the hospital will include walk-in services until 10pm and a booked service through the night.
A survey into the Grantham hospital Green site model was launched on December 15, 2020, with an interim report produced on January 15 of this year.
A trust spokesman said: “For anyone who has difficulty with access for any of the areas you can call or email and someone will provide this service through a medium that is accessible.”
Grantham SOS Campaigner and South Kesteven councillor Charmaine Morgan said: “Whilst it’s looking promising they are restoring a number of the services at Grantham Hospital and have plans to restore even more, we have grave concerns over the very short notice and very short window for anyone to respond.
“It’s very likely the groups most affected won’t have time to respond.”
She said there was already concern the move further took away night-time A&E services in the long run.
Councillor Morgan, one of those to give evidence, said: “Listening to the arguments during the case it was very clear the failure to consult was a significant issue.”
A map of Grantham Hospital showing the majority of it as COVID-19 free apart from the urgent treatment centre and the ambulatory care section.
Fellow councillor Ray Wootten pointed out the board’s meeting was on the same day as Lincolnshire County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee.
“I was a bit cross because a recent motion called on the trust to have a full and frank consultation across the entirety of Lincolnshire. This way anyone without internet access can’t contribute, if they’re even aware of it.
“It’s an extraordinary meeting, what’s such an emergency they need to do it so quickly? Is it because of the COVID Green Site coming to an end?
“They have had plenty of time to think about that and deal with it.”
He reiterated that services should return to the same level they were four-and-a-half years ago.
“For a growing district of 140,000-plus population I want to see the same Grantham Hospital services we had before, nothing less, nothing more.”
Protests have been held many times over the past four years to support staff and oppose plans to remove A&E services further. Photo: Mel Powles
Fighting 4 Grantham Hospital campaigner Jody Clark said the time frame “doesn’t give everyone the chance to respond”.
“It restricts anyone who doesn’t have internet access or has additional needs (language barrier, disabilities, elderly) and some of those will need to use those services the most,” she said.
“So it’s on all of us to give our views to make sure everyone’s needs are taken into consideration.”
She said the consultation so far “left me with more questions than answers” – particularly around A&E, staffing levels and the risk to patients.
“I hope the board approve the changes, as it will reduce some of the need to travel, but I honestly think we need more enhanced services locally, especially with all the residential developments in the county, all our hospitals will be under excess demand unless better local provision is given,” she said.
“Nearly five years on from the original overnight closure, it’s about time this got sorted, we will keep fighting for Grantham Hospital.”
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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