Chichester: NHS bosses confirm hospital cuts

Health bosses have confirmed they will go ahead with the downgrading of St Richard's Hospital in Chichester - reports the BBC.

West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) announced last week that Worthing would be the county's major general hospital, having full paediatrics, A&E and consultant-led maternity care

Emergency A&E and maternity services at St Richard's will be cut, forcing long travel times on those who require these services from the area served by the hospital.

The PCT has said St Richard's will retain 90% of its A&E services, with only patients with major problems, those needing emergency surgery and victims of serious accidents going elsewhere.

It said 50% would go to Portsmouth and 50% to Worthing, with the majority being taken directly by ambulance to the appropriate hospital.

However, journey times to those hospitals from the area covered by St Richard's are significant and highly vulnerable to traffic problems at rush hour.

One St Richard's campaigner told BBC South Today: "I often have to go in as an emergency.
"If I have to go to Worthing or Portsmouth it could be fatal."

The PCT said journey times had been taken into consideration when making the decision and it was aware that people in Selsey suffering serious accidents and requiring emergency surgery would have travel times greater than one hour at peak times.

But it said that, on balance, a much greater number of people would be adversely affected if the major general hospital was in Chichester.

Why the PCT has been forced into making this choice and there are insufficient public funds to keep adequate services at BOTH hospitals is the key question in this affair - and very likely due to central government wasting vast sums on other areas of spending.

For example, by sending £115 million every single week to the European Union, whose budget has failed its annual audit for 13 years in a row, and which has a terrible reputation for waste and fraud.

This is totally wasted money and far more than would be required to maintain services at St Richards. The government needs to decide which is more important - health services, or the European Union.

Campaigners for St Richard's are now considering whether to seek a judicial review of the decision.

The £230m primary schools sell-off

Almost 300 primary school sites have been sold off in the past decade as local councils seek to raise funds, according to a More4 News/Channel 4 News online survey.

The sales have generated £230m for authorities, as councils struggle to meet government funding demands and combat falling school rolls.

The research shows a further 188 primary schools sites are earmarked for future sale.

Critics say the sell-offs are a 'missed opportunity' to improve educational standards, and could leave authorities short of classrooms in the future.

Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT, said: "The findings both surprise and depress me. At the moment we still have extremely large class sizes all over England and Wales, and because of these sell-offs we will find ourselves with insufficient classroom capacity further down the road.

"Whilst the pupil population might be decreasing at the moment this was the ideal opportunity to reduce class sizes and keep spending on education at the same level so that we can begin to fulfil Gordon Brown's promise that state school children will be funded to the same level as those in the independent sector."

Government funds schools according to how many places they have, rather than the actual number of pupils. It urges authorities to close schools with too few children, as they are seen as an ineffective use of resources.

The survey found that the council which received the most for primary school sales in the past decade was Oxfordshire, whose sell-off programme led to £39.8m being brought in from sales.

Others in the top 10 included: Hertfordshire at £25.6m, Cambridgeshire at £19.7, West Sussex at £15.8m, Havering at £15.4m and Leeds at £13.7m.

Over Easter, Cumbria County Council became the latest authority to indicate it was going to close primary schools under a reorganisation programme.

Councils pledge to put the money raised from primary school sales back into education funding, and many new schools and facilities have been built using the revenue.

However, professor Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, warned that pledges on education spending have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

He said: "You have to take councils at face value when they say they will be ring-fencing funds. But ring-fencing doesn't necessarily mean extra spending on education."

Overall, 113 councils responded to questions filed by Channel 4 news online under Freedom of Information rules, to show that 298 primary school sites had been sold off in the past decade for a total of £236,337,577.