MP Steve Barclay slams ‘further health cuts’ at Fenland hospital
MP Steve Barclay has accused NHS bosses of further cuts to health services in Fenland amid his ongoing row over provision at North Cambs Hospital in Wisbech.
Last month, the North East Cambridgeshire MP questioned the lack of use of the Community Diagnostic Centre introduced at the hospital during his tenure at the Secretary of State for Health.
He discovered the £2.1million centre had seen low numbers of patients and in some months had seen none at all.
Mr Barclay also slammed the removal, without consultation, of the MRI scanner from the centre to Ely’s Community Diagnostic Centre.
Now he claims he has unearthed further evidence of local health bosses removing health services from Fenland.
In a post on social media the MP said: “They are bizarrely describing requiring patients to travel from the new £2.1 million state-of-the-art Community Diagnostic Centre in Wisbech to King’s Lynn as a ‘success’ and ‘a patient benefit’. Yet this is not the view of constituents impacted.
“There was no public consultation about these changes. Health bosses say that following moving chest x-rays in January this year to the Community Diagnostic Centre in King’s Lynn, all GP plain film activity will now also be redirected.”
He said a patient requiring a knee x-ray had been told they had to go to King’s Lynn, even though they had asked to be seen in Wisbech.
Mr Barclay said there will still be some x-ray patients at the North Cambs for outpatient clinics and the minor injuries unit, but many other patients will have to travel.
He said: “This further undermines the new Community Diagnostic Centre in Wisbech.
“Health bosses say they have ‘undertaken an impact assessment of the redirection of this service and are confident that patients will benefit’. Yet, the impact assessment does not appear to have been published.
“Following my earlier blog showing the MRI scanner was moved from Wisbech to Ely Community Diagnostic Centre and not returned as promised, we now discover that x-rays have been moved from Wisbech to King’s Lynn.
“I have also discovered that just last week a new planning application was made for a new Community Diagnostic Centre in Peterborough, which no doubt patients from Fenland will also be expected to travel to.
“NHS bosses have failed to explain why they only expect Fenland patients to travel to King’s Lynn, Ely and Peterborough and not patients from those areas to travel to Fenland.
“This moving of health services from Fenland is also at odds with the NHS’s own data. This reveals that both cancer incident rates are higher in Wisbech with 688 cases per 100,000 people annually, compared to 536 in South Cambridgeshire and 505 in Ely South.
“There is also lower attendance at screening - making the availability of the MRI scanner more not less important. For most screening metrics except breast cancer, there is lower screening rates in Fenland than East Cambridgeshire.
“I welcome that Wisbech Town Council is following up on my concerns in my previous blog on the MRI scanner, and the fact some months only a tenth of patients are using the Wisbech Community Diagnostic Centre compared to other months. I hope others will do so to. If you share my concerns, then feel free to email the ICB asking for answers at cpicb.contact@nhs.net.”
A spokesperson for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care Board explained the changes made to where patients have their x-rays has been made by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn and not by the board.
She added: “NHS Cambridgeshire & Peterborough is committed to ensuring patients can access services closer to home, including diagnostic tests such as x-rays. We are in active discussions with Queen Elizabeth Hospital and NHS Norfolk & Waveney ICB to find a way to enable Wisbech patients to get their x-rays carried out at North Cambs Hospital where clinically appropriate.”
