COLUMN: Keep our Air Ambulance flying high
“This week I and members of the WAA Campaign Group as a united voice, met with the new Chair and Chief Officer of the NHS Joint Commissioning Group.
We pressed the importance of the service to rural Wales, the failings of the consultation process and that it was still not too late to pull the plug on this proposal which will centralise services at the detriment of our communities.
At the start of this process a great deal was said about 583 incidents that would benefit from the relocation – yet, after we showed that this was a figment of imagination, that vanished like the morning mist.
However, at each stage they have changed the justification for the move yet come to the same result – making a mockery of actually listening.
The current claim is that 139 extra current unmet need will be seen however this is at the expense of the most rural communities.
It’s easy to say that all areas on paper will benefit BUT when Powys is 25% of Wales you only need parts of the Swansea valley gaining from the Llanelli base, it will hide the detrimental effect on the deep rural communities of Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire. Again Pen Llyn and parts of Ynys Mon will lose out in Betsi Cadwallader area whilst, yes, the North East may gain. But, again, time after time we have been told that the helicopters are best placed for rural areas whilst the RRV’s are suited for urban settings. Yet this proposal goes against all that.
As if that wasn’t enough, the obvious result of moving bases will be that the RRV – Rapid Response Vehicles won’t be rapid to swathes of Gwynedd and Mid Wales. If the helicopter can’t fly due to weather conditions then the RRV will also be irrelevant to us.
Optima reports that Powys and Hywel Dda Health Board regions will face the greatest disadvantage when the helicopter is unable to fly, and call this ‘unsurprising’. EMRTS’ own mapping of road responses also adds north-west Wales and Anglesey to this list.
They even refer to a ‘New Unmet Need’ - people who used to be covered by the service but no longer are due to the changes in areas where need is currently met,
The provider of the third party modelling software used, Optima, clearly states that the data sample is not robust as a result of its small size.
Our Option 6C – of keeping Welshpool and Caernarfon bases and having a split shift with extra RRV in the North East was blocked on basis of cost – despite it being accepted as the best for health benefits. Surely that should be the aim?
Yet the irony is the result of centralisation of services on the A55 will result in substantially higher costs having to design and deliver a new service in Mid Wales to make up for the move. I bet that will end up costing more than option 6C would which furthermore makes a mockery of things.
As we face the meeting on April 23, let’s be assured, despite the arrogance shown, the contempt towards these communities, the lack of transparency, this will not be the end of things. It’s crystal clear there needs to be a judicial review of the process and we must continue to fight to ensure investment in the new services to make up for any move. We need to see action not empty gestures to try and keep us quiet.
Common sense needs to prevail.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|