Stafford hospital concerns: Campaigners fear final death knell on way for A&E
Stafford's County Hospital is the 'obvious' choice to lose its A&E among the three major hospitals in the county, campaigners have warned.
The Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), published this week, revealed health bosses want to downgrade one emergency department to an urgent care centre.
The Support Stafford Hospital group which has marched through the streets and held vigils at Weston Road in recent years against downgrades, have declared it is inevitable County Hospital will be the one to lose out as opposed to Royal Stoke, or Queen's Hospital in Burton Upon Trent.
Campaigner Julian Porter said: "It is pretty obvious it is going to be Stafford it is not going to be anywhere else.
"It won't be Burton, which is a fully functional A&E, or Stoke which is the major trauma centre.
"This has been on the cards for five or six years and will be the final death knell for Stafford Hospital."
In 2011 the A&E at Stafford was reduced from a 24 to 14-hour department. In the last two years Royal Stoke, run by the same trust, has consistently failed emergency performance targets prompting loud calls for a round the clock service to be returned to County Hospital.
That has never materialised, despite a pre-general election pledge by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt in 2015.
West Midlands Ambulance Service already avoid taking serious emergency cases to Stafford having being instructed to use neighbouring hospitals by Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
