Sir John is extremely concerned about the proposals made by Mid and South Essex NHS that St Peter’s Hospital should close and services be relocated to Braintree. Many of the questions put to residents in official questionnaire designed by NHS Mid and South Essex bare no relevance while others do not allow local people to give sufficiently detailed responses and make their views heard in full. He has therefore decided to run his own survey and has gained the assurance of the local NHS leaders that responses will be taken into consideration as part of the consultation process which runs until 21st March.
The Mid and South Essex NHS proposal is that the intermediate care beds and stroke rehabilitation beds at St Peter’s should be relocated and that in future the midwife-led birthing unit will be based at Braintree. In addition, the outpatient services currently provided at St Peter’s will be provided from other locations in the town and once this has been established, St Peter’s will be permanently closed.
There can be no doubt that the loss of essential medical services such as maternity, outpatients, and stroke facilities from the town will make it far harder for many members of the Maldon community to access critical healthcare services. In particular, those needing maternity, stroke rehabilitation and intermediate care services and their families will face much longer travelling times. Sir John welcomes the assurance that outpatient services will continue at St Peter’ until alternative local provision is up and running. However, he is aware that many of his constituents want to see them kept at St Peter’s.
Sir John strongly encourages that when his constituents receive the survey via email that they share it as widely as possible, particularly to those impacted by the proposals as putting as broader range of responses to the NHS on behalf of his constituents can only be a good thing. Delivery of the survey will start as soon as possible to every home in the area but you can respond via email or letter as well.
The survey questions are as follows:
1. Are you aware of the proposal to close the existing maternity, stroke and outpatient facilities at St. Peter’s Hospital? Yes/No
2. How often have you or your family members utilized services at St. Peter’s Hospital? And how?
3. Which services should continue to be provided in Maldon? Do you have any comment on the reason for your answer.
4. If you or a member of your family needed maternity services, would you wish to use a midwife-led unit in Maldon? Yes/No
5. If you or a family member needed intermediate care or stroke rehabilitation, would you want this to be provided in Maldon? Yes/No
6. Should outpatient services continue to be made available on the St Peter’s site or could they be relocated to another repurposed site in the town?
7. Would you like to add any further comments?
Please return this to Sir John Whittingdale by any of the following means:
By post to: Sir John Whittingdale MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
By hand to: 19 High Street, Maldon, CM9 7ET
By emailto: john.whittingdale.mp@parliament.uk
The image below displays the letter sent to Sir John’s constituents alongside his survey questions:
