You
will recall that earlier this summer I lodged a complaint with the Parliamentary
& Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) regarding the failure of the North Tees
& Hartlepool NHS Trust to consult with the residents of East Durham over
its Momentum proposals, part of which recommended the closure of Hartlepool hospital. I have argued that the failure of the Trust to carry out full consultation on its proposals renders any subsequent decision invalid (posts dated 18 June & 8 August 2012 give further details).
As
part of the PHSO process I contacted the Chief Executive of the Trust to request
full details of its consultation in East Durham along with its assessment of how this compared with
the level and format of consultation in the rest of the Trust area.
I
have now received documents from the Trust which it considers constitutes
consultation. Although I remain firmly of the opinion that there was no consultation worthy of the description in our area I am currently working through these documents to make a realistic assessment of the Trust's claim. I then intend to pursue my complaint through the office of the PHSO by the end of this week, with the ultimate aim of preventing the closure of
Hartlepool hospital for the reason of insufficient or inadequate consultation with those
affected residents in my area.
I
feel it is important to ensure the health and safety of the people I represent
in my part of East Durham by doing everything within my influence to halt the
proposed closure of Hartlepool hospital and also prevent the
construction of a new hospital that no-one wants and no-one can afford.
This is particularly relevant today in light of the Trust’s announcement that it intends to plough ahead
with the closure of the hospitals at Hartlepool and North Tees and begin construction of a new hospital at Wynyard, regardless of the wishes of the people of East Durham and Hartlepool.
I will update this site later this week with details of my continuing correspondence with the PHSO but please feel free to pass on your comments in the meantime.
