10:20am Friday 26th March 2010
By David Lindsell
Here is a vision of how NHS Kingston Primary Care Trust sees the future of healthcare.
It shows a chunk taken out of a hospital, and new large polyclinic run by a private firm or GPs offering some services which used to be provided in the hospital including x-rays, minor procedures, and some urgent care.
The graphic, borrowed from another PCT, was used in leaflets to promote the idea of turning Surbiton Hospital into a polyclinic, but it gives a picture of how services could be run in the future, and aligns with the NHS London slogan "No change is not an option".
But many of the ideas it proposes are controversial and attempts to introduce them in other parts of London have met with huge protests from patients, residents and MPs.
It also shows the removal of specialist care from the hospital, with patients taken to specialist hospitals like St George’s - where victims of major strokes and major trauma injuries have been taken since a public consultation approved the changes last year.
Kingston Hospital has said that it supports the idea of a polyclinic at Surbiton site, on the proviso that the hospital win the bid to run those aspects of healthcare which would allow it to keep the income.
The hospital has also been told by NHS Kingston to build an urgent care facility in its grounds to divert patients with minor ailments away from attending accident and emergency.
But a recent report commissioned by the Department for Health said NHS plans to shift as many as 60 per cent of current patients away from A+Es to polyclinics and urgent care centres were flawed.
A spokesman for Kingston Hospital said: "NHS Kingston has asked Kingston Hospital to provide an urgent care centre on the hospital site.
"We are currently working with them and local GPs to develop this proposition and enhance the GP service we already have in A&E.
"With the increasing number of people coming to A&E with varying symptoms from minor to major, the enhanced GP-led service will ensure those needing the most urgent medical attention receive it first."
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