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LETTERS: Steven Ford Reconfiguring acute hospitals in England: Try reconfiguring services to improve standards and meet patient preferences BMJ 2006; 333: 1271-a [Full text]

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hospital services in Hexham

gordon pledger   (19 December 2006)

Re: hospital services in Hexham

Steven Ford   (24 December 2006)

hospital services in Hexham 19 December 2006
gordon pledger, retired Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 3PN Send response to journal: Re: hospital services in Hexham	When two of my children were born in Hexham hospitals in the 1960's there was a single handed consultant obstetrician and two consultants anaesthetists. To provide a 24/7 service now would require perhaps five times that number. This raises the question such as how can a hospital providing a service to a population of about 60,000 people afford and recruit this number of staff, and give them enough work to maintain their competence. To provide this high level of staff in obstetrics and other specialties would be expensive, and the cost would have to be met by the Northumberland Care Trust. This would be to the detriment of the services in other parts of the County, and it has to be asked whether this would be fair, given that the Hexham part of the county is the wealthiest and most healthy. I do agree that clinical links with the west side of the county are the result of administrative decisions rather than clinical ones, as the natural communication routes from Hexham are down the Tyne Valley to Newcastle Competing interests: None declared
Re: hospital services in Hexham 24 December 2006
Steven Ford, GP Haydon & Allen Valleys Medical Practice. NE47 6LA Send response to journal: Re: Re: hospital services in Hexham	Editor I am grateful to Dr. Pledger for his reply. My hope for Hexham is that it might share the resources available, not be the sole or even major resource for the county. Where is the virtue in having one desperately busy site and one running at below capacity? Two running at best speed must be an improvement. Tynedale may have 60,000 inhabitants but the neighbouring areas need not be excluded from using Hexham and could do so to their advantage and, for some services, already do. My fellow peasants and I who dwell in the west of the county look with envy at the ostentatious wealth of Morpeth and are compelled to continuously tug our forelocks when shuffling through its streets. For decades there has been an inequity in the provision of money and other resources between the two sides of the county. A situation that remains unaddressed. Steven Ford Competing interests: I work near Hexham