Petition to CCG and ULHT

31/03/2022

Apologies for not posting on here for over a month but I have been rather poorly. However, I am on the mend and today have finally received a response from John Turner CEO of Lincolnshire CCG.

I have copied it here for you all to read. As you will see he has agreed to a meeting with me so that i can hand over the petition so I'm asking all of you whether you would give the petition a final push by sharing it with your friends and family. It currently has 1253 signatures but the more we can get before I present it the better.

I am not hopeful of success at all but at least if he gets the petition he will see how much support Louth and Grantham hospitals have. https://www.change.org/p/lincolnshire-ccg-re-establish-louth-and-grantham-hospitals-in-lincolnshire-as-full-a-and-e-hospitals-now

31 March 2022

Mrs Palmer

Dear Mrs Palmer

Services at Louth Hospital

Thank you for your letter of 14th January 2022 to Mr Morgan, which you know he subsequently passed to me for my consideration, and for your further emails to me. I do appreciate you raising your concerns, and all feedback from the public we serve is welcome and constructively received.

In your letter you raise issues relating to a petition that you have raised to fully restore Louth and Grantham to 24-hour Accident and Emergency Hospitals, along with issues relating to GP services in the Mablethorpe area. You also request a meeting so that you can hand over your petition.

I understand that you have recently met with my colleague Mr Andrew Morgan, Chief Executive at United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust at which he was able to share with you information regarding the planning and provision of A&E services. I do hope that you found this meeting helpful. If in addition you would also value the opportunity to have a conversation with myself then I can confirm that I would be pleased to meet with you to receive the petition and to also discuss these matters with you.

The CCG is very mindful of the healthcare needs of the population in the East and Coastal areas of the County, along with the needs of the thousands of visitors to the area each year, and we do keep matters under ongoing review to ensure that those needs are met within the constraints we work within. There is a considerable network of services currently locally available in the local area for people with an urgent healthcare need including Pharmacists, General Practitioners and their teams, 111, Paramedic and Ambulance services, LIVES, community health and mental health services, along with the 24/7 Urgent Treatment Centres at both Louth and Skegness Hospital, with access to A&E services at Boston, Grimsby and Lincoln when required.

In your further emails dated 22nd and 23rd February 2022, you have asked me about the Urgent Care Services at Louth, which I have also looked into. The Louth Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) can treat a wide range of urgent conditions which are not critical or life threatening (e.g., sprains and strains, suspected broken bones, feverish illness in adults and children, minor scalds and burns).

The UTC is GP led and currently Louth has a Doctor on duty 12 hours a day, with access to the on-call GP overnight if required. The workforce at Louth is made up of registered and unregistered staff with a broad range of skills, including those of Advanced Practitioners. We do not have a Pharmacy at any of our stand-alone UTC’s (such as Louth), and our policy is to provide a prescription for the patient to collect their medication at a local Pharmacy. There is always a Pharmacy open in Lincolnshire 24/7, but this unfortunately does mean that some patients may need to travel, especially in the overnight period. Equally we do not undertake blood tests in UTC’s, this is a matter for the ongoing care of the patient (either by their GP or onward emergency care to assist in a clinical diagnosis).

I do hope that this letter is helpful in providing an initial response to your questions. Please do get back to me if you would like any further information or to meet with me.

I also do hope that you are feeling better now following the contact with our staff and services in February 2022 which you described in your emails to me.

Yours sincerely

John Turner

Chief Executive

NHS Lincolnshire CCG

Re-establish Louth and Grantham Hospitals in Lincolnshire as full A and E hospitals now

08/02/2022

8 FEB 2022 —

Dear All,

I went to a meeting with the CEO of ULHT this lunchtime. I have handed over all of the comments so far received from you all. Also, I have handed over the various experiences that some of you have shared with me- don't worry no names are mentioned.

He asked me whether we wanted all of the back-up facilities at these hospitals as part of the A and E request. I said that they would be needed for a fully operating A and E hospital. He asked me whether I had had a response from CEO Lincolnshire CCG yet and I said only to say he has promised a full written response but that what I really needed was a face to face meeting. He agreed it was needed.

Therefore, he is due to have a meeting with him and is going to support my request for a meeting and a response as soon as possible. He has taken away all the documentation that I've shared with him and is going to read it all and also share it at his meeting.

He has also committed to a further meeting with me once I've had a chance to meet with CEO Lincs. CCG. He did say to me that he didn't want to raise hopes because there will be opposition to the idea mainly citing cost and staffing. For instance, he said that it would take 10 extra Consultants plus all the other NHS and support staff. Although things have improved in Lincolnshire there is still a lot of difficulty recruiting staff.

I have suggested the idea of providing bursaries to people to cover the cost of their expensive training but with the proviso that they actually come and work in Lincolnshire afterwards. Also, they could do their work experience in Lincolnshire.

I'm sorry that I haven't got a more positive or constructive update to give to you all but we can't give up especially yet. However, I should now get a meeting with CEO Lincs CCG plus a follow up meeting with CEO ULHT.

In the meantime I wonder if we can all write to our respective MP's and tell them to support our campaign. I fully expect them to respond with their usual 'standard' letters but we must put pressure on them nevertheless.

Feel free to comment or message me about this. Also, can I ask anyone who has not shared this petition yet to do so as we need as much support from Lincolnshire residents as we can get.

Best wishes and thank you for your support,

Pauline

02/02/2022

Thank you to everyone who has contacted me either by phone, email or private FB message to tell me about your personal experiences in regard to this petition. I have had quite a few really worrying descriptions and I will be collating them all at the weekend ready for next week's meeting with Andrew Morgan. It is very obvious that the shortage of GP's is adding to the problems too but Andrew is only in charge of hospitals so I will have to wait until I can secure a meeting with John Turner CEO Lincolnshire CCG to discuss that issue. Unfortunately, he has only said he will write to me with 'a full written response in due course' so far. However, I am still pushing for a face to face meeting because sending emails to and fro just wastes time.

So, if anyone else has anything they want to share with me about health experiences in Lincolnshire please contact me by the weekend.

There are 1150 signatures now although it is only rising very slowly now which is a shame because the higher it is the more effect it will have.

Once I've had the meeting I will put out an update to let you all know if anything fruitful came out of it.

Thanks again,

Pauline

28/01/2022

I thought I would look up the most recent CQC report on hospitals under ULHT. Interesting to see that both Louth County Hospital and Grantham and District Hospital are both 'Good' under all headings: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led.

Whereas Lincoln County Hospital = Caring=Good, all others =Requires Improvement.

In particular Urgent and emergency services = inadequate

Pilgrim Hospital= overall requires improvement. but the following specific areas are:

Critical care, End of life and Surgery are all Good
Medical care, maternity and outpatients requires improvement
Services for children and young people =inadequate
Urgent and Emergency services = inadequate

Bearing in mind that both Lincoln and Pilgrim have been classified as inadequate for Urgent and Emergency services add weight to the argument of re-establishing A and E at Louth and Grantham?

I personally think so because this shows they cannot cope with the sheer number of patients coming through their A and E depts.

27/01/2022

Just to update everyone on here. Mr Morgan has rearranged our meeting until after my isolation period ends so that's good news.

Also, as I still haven't heard any more from Mr Turner, I have emailed him this morning again asking for a confirmation as to whether he agrees to a meeting with me and also to suggest a date and location for it.

I think it would be in his best interests to do so. It needs to be before March too because that is when the CCG will make announcements as to further changes in services following their 'consultation' which has now ended.

So, even though I'm isolating due to Covid I am still on the case.

26/01/2022

Today I've tested positive for Covid-19 so that means I have had to contact Andrew Morgan and ask to rearrange our meeting that was originally scheduled for next week. So a delay now until after my isolation period and depends on when Mr Morgan has time to see me. On the plus side the number of signatures is still increasing slowly so it will hopefully have a stronger effect.

24/01/2022

Just a quick update to let you all know that Andrew Morgan CEO ULHT has agreed a date to meet me regarding this petition. So a step in the right direction.

21/01/2022

"I would like to assure you that your petition has been received by the CCG and this is currently being reviewed and someone will be in contact with you shortly regarding this."

I received this in an email this morning and so hopefully won't be too long before something substantial happens. Either a meeting or at least a reaction of some sort that we can move forward with. I will also be emailing Mr Morgan ULHT today to see if a date can be arranged soon for my meeting with him too.

We have over 760 signatures now and it is still going up albeit slowing down. So if you know anyone who is not aware of the petition please pass the link on to them.

Thank you all.

19/01/2022

I started a petition 12 days ago to ULHT and CCG Lincolnshire and here is link if you want to add your signature and/or share the link to others. https://www.change.org/p/lincolnshire-ccg-re-establish-louth-and-grantham-hospitals-in-lincolnshire-as-full-a-and-e-hospitals-now At this point it has 700 signatures. CEO of ULHT has agreed to a meeting with me on the issue. I am awaiting confirmation from CEO of Lincolnshire CCG. I will use this page to make any updates on the issue.

Re-establish Louth and Grantham Hospitals in Lincolnshire as full A and E hospitals now

19/01/2022

I have started this page so that I can keep everyone up to date with my petition to ULHT and CCG regarding restoring both Louth County Hospital and Grantham hospital to full 24 hour A and E levels.