Reply to proposals for NHS
In August we replied to the PCT's proposals for Stone House NHS hospital, Bishop's Castle. They proposed to give away the hospital buildings to the care home company Coverage Care, who would finance and construct a new building on the whole Stone house site
, and in this building provide a reduced number of NHS beds under a ten-year contract with three-year break clauses.
Some medical services would continue in the new building and some of the NHS nurses would be offered nursing jobs by Coverage Care.
It would obviously be better for the NHS to control its own space, employ its own nurses, and keep its freedom to develop its services in response to future medical and population changes.
This would have been possible under our compromise proposal, which was for the NHS to lease part of the new Coverage Care building for continued use as a hospital.
We also proposed that Coverage Care should either buy the buildings or, by reducing the rental for the lease, compensate the NHS for the gain they would make by acquiring the buildings.
Coverage Care has finally rejected this compromise proposal. The best thing now is for the PCT to withdraw its plan, repair the existing Stone House buildings, continue to operate the NHS hospital in these buildings, and develop NHS services wherever possible, leaving Coverage Care to find some other way to improve its care home provision. The PCT's plan to abolish the hospital is any case financially flawed: The real savings would be much less than the alleged gross savings of up to £150,000 p.a.
Dr G St John Penney, Neil, Hird and NML Nathan, Bishops Castle
