Shropshire patients face pain management changes.
Shropshire patients who receive chronic pain management at a county hospital have been told they will be treated within the community in future.
The decision, by Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group, has left some worried that they will no longer be able to have the pain relieving injections they have come to depend on.
The pain management contract previously held by the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry has been awarded to Pain Management Solutions. The change will only affect Shropshire patients.
Sue Parkinson from Tilstock near Whitchurch said she is so worried, not just for her but others, that she has written to MP Owen Paterson He has written to the CCG asking for more details.
Miss Parkinson, 62, who says she is in constant agony, said she now knew what a postcode lottery meant.
"If I lived a few miles away, across the Cheshire or North Wales border I could still go to the Orthopaedic. Yet its my local hospital."
She said she believed the decision was financial.
The CCG said it had commissioned a community-based pain management service to help adults in Shropshire manage chronic pain.
A spokesman said: "This means that some patients that currently go in to hospital for some treatments and have already received the recommended NICE-approved treatments may now be referred back to their GP or directly in to the community-based provider for on-going care.
"All patients that are identified by the hospitals for referral to their GP or into the community service will be written to by the hospital in the coming weeks. Any patient that meets the requirements for on-going hospital treatment will continue to receive this care."
"Many of the procedures that were previously only offered in a secondary care setting can now be delivered safely by a community service. These changes are in line with NICE guidance on the management of chronic pain."
Miss Parkinson, a former licensee, has been having pain management at the Orthopaedic Hospital since she had a spinal fusion operation 12 years ago after a fall.
"I have been having injections in my shoulder andlast April an injection in my spine. That gave me a little bit of my independence back and I was due to have another soon.
"But when I rang about an appointment I was told that the hospital was no long giving the injections and that Pain Management Solutions will be giving me my treatment in the community.
"I was told someone would come round to my home," Miss Parkinson said.
"How on earth can they give me a spinal chord epidural in my house. The last one was done in theatre."
"All I want is some independence. I want to get to the stage where I can get about in a car again. I am in agony because I need another injection. I feel housebound."
Kim Barrow, Director of Operations at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, said: “Our first priority is, and always will be, the welfare of our patients. Shropshire CCG have assured us that the alternative provider they have contracted will be able to provide the treatment our patients require.
“We recognise and sympathise with the anxiety this patient and others like her are feeling. This is a big change for those patients accessing our pain service, many of whom have been coming here for a number of years, and that it is understandably unsettling.
“We are in the process of writing to every patient affected to let them know what is happening. We are also aiming to speak by phone with every patient who already has an appointment booked in. Some of those patients travel a long distance, and we are giving them the option discuss their concerns by phone rather than make that long journey.”
