Councillor laments hospital scan delay (From Malvern Gazette)

Councillor laments hospital scan delay

7:30pm Friday 15th March 2013 in News By Tom Edwards

DELAY: Councillor Aubrey Tarbuck was told he would have to wait four days for a scan at Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

A FORMER mayor of Worcester has hit out over his treatment at the city’s hospital – saying he was left waiting four days for a scan.

Councillor Aubrey Tarbuck went to Worcestershire Royal Hospital with with bleeding ulcers after falling ill in the early hours of the morning.

The veteran politician went into the accident and emergency department on the Saturday, only to be told there would not be the staff on hand to undertake a scan until the following Tuesday.

Speaking during a meeting of the city council’s scrutiny committee, he said: “I’ve had a very personal experience at the hospital recently.

“I fell ill at 3am on a Saturday, got to A&E at 3.45am, and I couldn’t get the scan I needed on the weekend. I had to wait four days for a scan, and my worry is, with all the changes going on who will provide the service in the future?

“When I was there the staff were so busy. They could not cope without the services at the Alexandra Hospital (in Redditch).”

His comments were in response to a proposed shake-up of the A&E in Redditch, which would see it downgraded and patients with strokes and other major traumas directed to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

During the debate Dr Anthony Kelly, Worcestershire Clinical Senate's chairman, said he was confident the royal would be better placed as a result of the changes.

“The Alex is not going to close, it will continue to provide an urgent service, but what we aim to do is centralise very specialist services on one site, so you get the same highly-skilled response on a weekend that you get in the week,” he said.

“We are expecting a 24/7 consultant-led service, which will improve the quality of what we are able to provide during the seven-day week.”

Simon Trickett, chief operating officer for South Worcestershire clinical commissioning group, said the number of consultants at the Royal would grow from 11 to 20 if the changes are finalised.

“The way we organise health services at the moment isn’t clinically or financially sustainable in the future,” he said.

“We need to avoid a ‘fudge’ solution that buys us another year or 18 months.

“The Government has made it clear they want seven-day working to be an integral part of health policy, so there is an acknowledgement we need to solve that and end up in a situation where you get the same service every day of the week.”