East Lancashire health bosses respond to dossier

1:59pm Wednesday 23rd July 2008

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HEALTH chiefs have given their first detailed response to a dossier of complaints and revealed 10 cases were being investigated.

But bosses re-stated their belief that the majority of the document was ‘too vague’ to be properly looked into.

And health chiefs said they were already investigating nine of the 10 cases before the dossier was published.

The 100-page dossier was compiled by Liberal Democrat councillors unhappy that Burnley General lost its ability to handle 999 cases, with all emergency patients being sent to the Royal Blackburn since last November.

Now, two months after the dossier’s release, the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust has admitted to early problems after the changeover.

But chiefs said things were now running smoothly.

Deputy chief executive Gary Graham said he had identified trends in the dossier, despite most of the individual stories being too vague to fully investigate.

He said despite initial problems with short-staffing while records were merged during the changeover, vacancies were now filled and team leaders introduced, meaning 97 per cent of patients now had all their notes ready at their appointments.

And he said GPs introduced to the emergency department at Blackburn meant that people transferred from Burnley’s urgent care centre could now be on a ward much more quickly, though he refuted claims of regular ambulance backlogs, saying he was only aware of two occasions were vehicles had to queue.

He said there was no evidence of problems with capacity at the Royal Blackburn Hospital, that there was now late-night consultant cover and 24-hour senior doctors in the emergency department, and that all areas of performance were constantly monitored.

He refuted claims that people had been given substandard food, or been left without help when they needed to be fed, saying the hospital stuck to national guidelines and was rated “good” for food by inspectors.

Mr Graham said: “The interim findings show that 80 per cent of the content is unverifiable.

“As an organisation, we have identified and acted on all the emerging themes in the dossier.”

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