Fight grows to keep A&E surgery teams at Stafford's County Hospital
Campaigners fighting to keep hospital services in Stafford have voiced grave concerns over the imminent removal of high-level emergency treatment from the town.
Emergency trauma surgery at County Hospital in Stafford will officially end on Monday.
Campaigners say it will mean more patients having to be transported to Royal Stoke University Hospital, which they warn will put lives in danger.
Medical bosses at Stoke strongly refute the claim, arguing dozens more beds will be opened by autumn to cope with spikes in demand.
According to latest figures, fewer than 63 per cent of patients at Royal Stoke are seen within the four-hour target time.
Cheryl Porter, co-founder of the Support Stafford Hospital campaign group, said: "So-called urgent transfers are already taking up to three hours because of these pressures.
"How much worse will this situation be once surgery ceases in Stafford?
"It means other people in need of help will undoubtedly suffer, too.
"The removal of surgery also means that there will be no orthopaedic on-call team at Stafford after 5pm, which will cause further delays as patients have to be transferred to Stoke for diagnosis and treatment.
"People need to wake up to the fact that this will build even more pressure into an already over-burdened system."
The campaigners are calling on health chiefs to publish a list of what constitutes an emergency to avoid patients wasting time, queuing for treatment at the wrong hospital.
She said: "As it stands, if you've got a tummy ache you won't be able to go to Stafford in case it's appendicitis. If you break a wrist, they'll put you in an ambulance and send you to Stoke. It's going to be very detrimental to the people of Stafford because the service is so disjointed."
Mark Hackett, chief executive of University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust, said: "There is a great deal of misinformation being spread about health services in Staffordshire.
"The movement of acute surgery to Royal Stoke and Royal Wolverhampton is because acute surgery was found to be clinically unsustainable at Stafford.
"The trust has now opened 68 beds since October 2014 and more than 150 will have opened by autumn 2015.
"Like NHS hospitals up and down the country we have recently been experiencing unprecedented demand for our services but the Staffordshire health community has also won a new government investment of over £250m.
"This investment is being used to improve services in both Stafford and Stoke and I am confident we will develop greatly improved health services for all of our local communities."
Consultant-led maternity services have already been moved from the Stafford hospital to Stoke.
Children's services will also be transferred this year.
