I (Nick Sheldon) attended the meeting last night.
I had emailed my reserved seat but I did not appear on the list, so the CCG still have to sort out their procedures somewhere.
Upon entering I had a long chat with Marcus Warnes about what the ‘engagement’ would entail. Yes, it is the first time I have heard ‘engagement’ too. I was led to believe it was a ‘consultation’, which I was asked to change to a ‘pre-consultation'(wording on our website – by the CCG), and it’s now an engagement. By the by, the point I am making is that there is definitely a breakdown in communication which isn’t helping us or indeed them.
Marcus has told me that the hospital is NOT going to close….. I’ll let that just sink in for a minute.
Marcus wants the site to be enhanced, he wants to do what we (the Save Leek Hospital Action Group) have been fighting for. He stated that it doesn’t make sense to close the site. He wants 6 or so rehabilitation beds, dementia excellence, enhanced MIU, X-Ray, and extra services.
The site as is would be re-modeled to cater for the people of the Moorlands.
Anyway, back to the engagement.
It was a full house, and after a bit of shouting at the start, everybody was asked to write down what THEY wanted for our hospital. These are now going to be taken by the CCG and they will being back a plan which will be talked about at the next engagement, pre-consultation, consultation.
So, I and indeed the rest of the SLH group, are very positive about last night and indeed the future of our hospital.
Thank you everyone for attending last night, and we will keep you updated as always.
Nick Sheldon
Oh and one other thing… Karen Bradley did NOT attend
This is very encouraging news. It will be interesting to see how this develops over the coming months