Save Our NHS Leicestershire will be participating in the Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) national day of action by holding a rally at the Clock Tower, Saturday 15th February 12.00 – 2.00 pm

Come along to show your support & help start a conversation with the public about UHL’s plans

University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) NHS Trust are looking to go to go to consultation on their £450million plans to reorganise our hospitals as soon as March 2020.

UHL intend to close the General Hospital as an acute hospital and consolidate acute services onto the Royal Infirmary and the Glenfield. A large amount of land at the General Hospital site will be sold for other use.

Because of pressure from campaigners, UHL now say they are planning to create 139 extra beds (instead of the zero in their original plan). This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.

The Trust still says that an expansion in community services and different pathways of care will offset rising need for hospital care. But these services are in a similar, if not worse, crisis.

This is cause for serious concern. At a Save Our NHS Leicestershire public meeting held last year on April 16, the Trust’s Director of Communications and Strategy admitted that the plans may not work if community services are unable to make up for a standstill in the number of beds.

Where is the evidence that such a plan for community services is in place?

Furthermore, the Trust’s plans is based on assumptions about population growth that only go as far as 2023-2024. However, it could be decades before Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland receives this much funding again. This is why it is so important that the plan is right.

No transparency

UHL have made virtually no detail about their plans available for the public. This is in spite of repeated requests from members of the public, including those made under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act. As late as January 2020 such a request was refused by UHL.

The loss of around 400 beds from Leicester General Hospital, the closest acute and maternity facility for East Leicestershire and Rutland, will have a significant impact on these and other communities. People have a right to know the details of these plans with enough time to understand the data and the options on offer well ahead of the formal period of consultation.

The Trust must publish its pre-consultation business case now! Health leaders elsewhere in England are content to place the pre-consultation business cases (including updated versions) for other health reconfigurations in the public domain for the months or years leading up to consultations (such as South Tyneside and Sunderland, and Surrey Downs and Sutton, South West London).

Why, then, is our local Trust refusing?

Save Our NHS Leicestershire will be participating in the Keep Our NHS Public (KONP) national day of action by holding a rally at the Clock Tower.

Come along to show your support and help us start a conversation with the public about UHL’s plans.