Another axe falls

10:12am Thursday 31st May 2007

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Elderly people who rely on services at the day hospital at Savernake will be the worst hit when it closes on July 1.

Staff were taken completely by surprise on Friday when, out of the blue, they received letters telling them of the closure.

Fed-up town councillors who have condemned the erosion of services at Savernake Hospital were told on Tuesday that the day hospital is to close.

They immediately called a public meeting to be held on Monday at the town hall at 7pm.

The letters to staff arrived less than 48 hours after Wiltshire Primary Care Trust chairman Tony Barron assured a public meeting in Marlborough there would be "a health facility at Savernake in 50 years time".

Mr Barron attended the AGM of the Friends of Savernake Hospital on Wednesday to discuss the proposed closure of the Minor Injuries Unit.

He gave no indication at all that the closure of the day hospital would be announced on Friday.

Yesterday the trust released a statement to the Gazette stating that, from July 1, the services of the day hospital would be provided at patients' homes by its new neighbourhood teams on a round-the-clock basis.

Chairman of the hospital Friends group Paul Lefever condemned the closure.

He said that, as far as he knew, there was no consultation by the PCT over the future of the day hospital.

"The day hospital provides an invaluable service to many people who rely upon it for treatment, for bathing, for contact with others and for some providing their only hot meal of the day," said Mr Lefever.

"Is this to be provided by the two neighbourhood teams proposed by the PCT who will be dealing with the whole of Kennet?

"Surely this is another subject that should have had some public consultation."

The day hospital largely provides services for elderly people. Its staff, who include a doctor, assess problems old people experience and they attend on a daily basis for treatment.

Staff have been warned not to talk to the media. One nurse said: "We are all subject to a gagging order but we think the people who use the hospital should know what is going on. We are all devastated because we were not expecting this announcement. Nobody comes clean and tells us what is happening."

Another staff member said: "We are being given the choice of leaving or going out into community team jobs, which none of us want."

Val Compton, who recently retired as an assistant physiotherapist at Savernake, said most of the elderly patients looked upon their day visits as an opportunity to get out of their homes and see new faces.

She said old people were brought into the day hospital for an assessment of their problems and for their treatment.

"If the day hospital closes we are not going to have the assessment centre either," she said.

One of the staff said many of the patients stayed for a meal and this gave nurses the chance to observe them, see if they were eating properly and, if not, find out why.