Can someone please show a spark of interest in the fate of Epsom General Hospital.  At the recent Public Health Meeting, held at Bourne Hall and arranged by Epsom & Ewell Borough Council, the first speaker Mr Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive of the Epsom & St Helier Universities NHS Hospital Trust, spoke about the 'current performance and future plans for Epsom General Hospital.' 

He told the meeting how well the hospitals were performing relative to other local and national hospitals.  He then spoke about the 'future'. Really he was only talking about the next two years. 

He gave an undertaking that for this period the Epsom and St Helier Hospitals would each continue to provide Acute Accident and Emergency, Maternity and Paediatric care at each hospital.  He then spoke about the poor state of both hospital’s buildings and emphasised how much money was going to be spent on the St Helier Hospital estate. 

Millions of pounds were to be spent on St Helier Hospital compared to peanuts at Epsom Hospital.  Every sentence after this contained a reference to St Helier Hospital.  The day after the meeting I enquired if it was possible to have a copy of the presentations.  I wanted to count the number of times St Helier was mentioned compared to Epsom. 

Come on Epsom wake up our hospital, as it is now, will cease to exist after the next two years, unless the local community come together to campaign to keep all the facilities that are presently located at Epsom Hospital!

You may not be aware that the Government have put a system in place to ensure that the public do not have a say.  Throughout England they have introduced another layer that sits above the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and covers a much larger local area than the single CCG. 

As far as Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group (SDCCG) is concerned, this is joined with two other CCG’s from Surrey to produce group called Surrey Heartlands.   This group is tasked with providing an STP (Sustainability and Transformation Plan) for the local area covered by the CCG’s.  This STP Group met/meet in private (secret). 

The public were not permitted to be present when the STP developed their terms of reference and business plan.  Meeting agenda and minutes were not available to the public!  The local STP plan has been agreed by all parties.  If one party present is/was against a particular proposal a majority vote determines the decision without any input from the public.

So in SW London the STP has stated that they want to reduce the number of hospitals from five to four or even three. This puts St Helier and Epsom Hospitals open to possible closure.  Residents who rely on Epsom Hospital need to get organised through their local Councils and Residents Associations to ensure that their view is considered. 

You may not be aware that the local population around St Helier have a very active, organised group called KOSHH (Keep Our St Helier Hospital).  They also have a website of the same name.  Where is the Epsom organisation?    

To protect OUR EPSOM HOSPITAL we need a local ACTION Committee to manage OUR local campaign to SAVE EPSOM HOSPITAL.  This includes ensuring that the complete site remains intact (i.e. NO sale of Hospital land or buildings) and all Hospital services to stay intact at Epsom Hospital Dorking Road (i.e. NO downgrading or transfer of services to other sites).   

Bob Mackison (bobmack9@hotmail.com)

Article supplied by Bob Mackison