PRESS STATEMENT
24 July 2005

At their recent committee meeting, members of West Cornwall HealthWatch heard that the Joint Stakeholders Steering Group – set up three years ago to look into ways of improving services at West Cornwall Hospital – has now been disbanded. The Group was set up following the historic “March of 20,000” in April 2002, when public pressure forced the health authorities to seek solutions through a Steering Group in which health officials and campaigners would work together in equal numbers.

However, the Steering Group has failed to bridge the gulf between the aspirations of the campaigners and the intentions of the health authorities. The latter, it seems, have now “pulled the plug” on this example of public involvement.

HealthWatch is deeply disappointed by this turn of events, especially since so little has been achieved in the years since the campaign was at its height. Indeed, services at West Cornwall Hospital have been constantly weakened, diminished and lost. The Accident and Emergency Department is now little more than a Minor Injuries Unit. The High Dependency Unit takes a much narrower band of patients than previously. For the greater part of the week the hospital can admit no surgical and few medical emergencies. More and more of these are being taken to Treliske, with much resulting hardship and distress for patients and their families. The current threat to anaesthetic cover is the latest and possibly the most damaging example of this rundown.

With the future of the hospital at this critical stage, the disbanding of the Steering Group can only add to the sense that the health authorities are ruthlessly ignoring the clearly expressed wishes of the local population. The key concerns of the community are, and always have been, to maintain the status of West Cornwall Hospital as an acute hospital admitting a full range of emergencies, and to shape its future services so that it is no longer seen as the poor relation of Treliske. Instead of this, more and more people are discovering that services are in decline at West Cornwall Hospital – not because of the staff, who continue to do an excellent job, but because of decision-making further up the line. The loss of the only group which brought together campaigners and health managers to talk through these matters, is an ominous sign that all the campaigning efforts are being deliberately sidelined by those with the clearest obligation to listen to them and to respond.

24 th July 2005