Health bosses admit they have let the people of Redditch down - The Redditch Standard

Health bosses admit they have let the people of Redditch down

Redditch Editorial 29th Sep, 2016 Updated: 18th Oct, 2016   0

HEALTH bosses took the unprecedented step of admitting they’d let the people of Redditch down as they faced an angry public meeting held at the town hall on Wednesday evening.

First Caragh Merrick, the new chair of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT), followed by interim chief executive Chris Tidman, under whose watch the bulk of the services have been withdrawn from the Alexandra Hospital, admitted ‘they had not been good at communicating with the community’.

“I’m the first to admit that in the past the trust has not done what it should have done in listening to your concerns,” said Ms Merrick.

“Let me tell you it is not going to be the same in the future. We will be forming public engagement groups for each of our sites and I want to start this now and in Redditch.”




The meeting had been called by local MP Karen Lumley, who received a loud and angry reception for her perceived lack of action in protecting the Alex, and she featured alongside Ms Merrick and Mr Tidman, three top consultants; Rachel Duckett, Graham James and Julian Berlet; chief nurse Jan Stevens; top local doctor Richard Davies, and Simon Trickett, chief officer of Redditch and Bromsgrove clinical commissioning group.

They’d been met by hundreds of banner waving protesters outside the town hall while 300 crammed into the council chamber to hear them speak. A further 100 in the reception were relayed the meeting by speaker while the Save the Alex campaign group estimated more than 1,500 had followed it on Facebook.


However from the start it was clear the public and the panel were talking at cross purposes – the people want major accident and emergency cover plus the return of maternity and in-patient childrens services to Redditch.

The panel meanwhile talked of county-wide provision largely covering planned admissions rather than emergency. They said there would be investment in the Alex, but it would be in operating theatres and endoscopy rather than emergency services.

With Worcester 18 miles away via a motorway plagued by roadworks or a winding country road filled with horse transporters and lorries, it left the question hanging in the air – how were local people, many without a car, going to get there in an emergency?

The answer came back – by ambulance – however as one as one attendee pointed out, when his wife suffered a stroke they’d waited 33 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.

By the end of the evening it was clear little had been resolved other than the health chiefs getting a full measure of the strength of feeling of the people in Redditch.

Mrs Lumley said: “People are very angry; they have had six years where they have been kept in the dark and that is not acceptable. This should have been sorted out in 2010. People see services disappearing and they are not happy.

“With the plans we have put forward I’m hoping the Secretary of State will be kind to us and give us the money to sort out the Alex and I’m working with the trust to make sure we can.”

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