The future of our community hospitals (Kirsty Williams AM )

Cymraeg
English

Kirsty Williams AM <info@kirstywilliams.org.uk>

The future of our community hospitals

September 1, 2006 12:00 AM
By Kirsty Williams AM in Mid Wales Journal

Deciding the theme of this month's column wasn't difficult - there's one over-riding concern in the constituency at the moment, and that's the future of our community hospitals. My office has been deluged by emails, letters and telephone calls from people worried about what is going to happen, and it's the main topic of conversation in the street surgeries that I've been holding across the constituency.

I, like all the people who have contacted me on the issue are less than impressed by the conduct of Powys LHB. I understand completely people's frustration at the lack of information, and the LHB constantly changing its mind and going back on its promises because I feel the same way. We've had more plans, strategies and documents than you could shake a stick at. Yet each one contradicts the one before and it is hard to have any confidence in what we are being told.

Providing healthcare in a rural area is a challenge and I understand it is a difficult balance between providing services close to people's homes, and making sure costs don't spiral out of control. But I believe it can be done, and done without the need to see facilities lost from our communities or hospitals closed without replacement premises. It is crazy to expect people to travel miles for community care, for diagnostic tests, for physio or chiropody. What the LHB should be doing is listening to the people and looking to work with the local council and the voluntary sector to turn our hospitals into bustling and busy places where residents can get all but the most serious or complex health and social care needs met.

Hospital closures are big, messy, obvious things. Other cuts, other closures, can go undetected, but deserve to be taken just as seriously. I was shocked and appalled to learn that the LHB are proposing to stop hospital kitchens preparing freshly cooked meals, and instead deliver ready-prepared meals to be heated up on site. Nutrition is a vital part of preventative health care, and eating well is key to recovery. We are all increasingly aware of the importance of freshly prepared and locally sourced food, and in other parts of the UK the drive has been to improve food in hospitals. As well as providing food to patients, some of our hospital kitchens currently prepare food for social services as part of meals of wheels schemes. The LHB has some serious questions to answer about why it is even considering this regressive step; if anything it should look to expand the role of hospital kitchens to service meals on wheels in other parts of the constituency.