MC23

 

Memorandum from South East England Regional Assembly Plenary Meeting

 

 

Proposed Resolution:

 

The Assembly calls for the Ministry of Defence and the South Central Strategic Health

 

Authority to review the proposed closure of the Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport.

 

Background and Comment:

 

Present plans will see Royal Hospital Haslar lose its status as the last Military Hospital in the United Kingdom in 2007 and its complete closure in 2009. The loss of this hospital will create a severe healthcare deficit in the region, both for the Armed Forces and the residents of South Hampshire.

 

There is no good reason to establish the Headquarters of Defence Medical Services in Birmingham, this at very high cost, when Royal Hospital Haslar already exists, has been modernised and has all supporting staff and patient facilities needed.

 

Recent press and television reports have highlighted the public's anger about the inadequate treatment of armed forces casualties returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, this situation arising from the decision to close the nation's last military hospital, Royal Hospital Haslar, in Gosport, Hampshire. These notes give reasons why I believe it is essential for this decision to be reversed, for both the efficiency of our Armed Forces, NHS and the qua/ity of medical care provided.

 

The present situation with the Royal Hospital Haslar is that the Ministry of Defence will withdraw funding for the hospital on 31 March 2007. The HPCT has negotiated for the use of certain facilities there until final closure planned for 2009. The HPCT is the commissioner of services and the PHT delivers those services at various hospital sites including the main Queen Alexandra Hospital in nearby Portsmouth. The closure of Royal Hospital Haslar, the last military hospital in the United Kingdom, was the decision of the Government in December 1998. There will be a small residual Ministry of Defence Hospital Unit based in the Portsmouth area for the foreseeable future and if Haslar continues under the control of the PHT some service medical personnel will be serving at Haslar under contract to the NHS until 2009

 

 

 

Royal Hospital Haslar was originally a naval hospital that opened on 23 October 1753. Today, it is a superb, modernised hospital. Chosen by the Lawrence Committee in 1998 with the decision to combine service medical provision at a single location, Haslar was modernised at a cost of some £45m to become the country's tn-service hospital during the early to mid- I 990s. The hospital can hold up to 350 beds, has 10 new operating theatres, a state of the art scanner, new burns unit (never used), hypobaric chamber and much more. With high boundary walls and protected by MoD police, it is in all respects secure. Situated in Gosport in a perfect setting overlooking the Solent beside the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour and having every facility needed, it is an ideal place both for treatment and recuperation. MoD staff accommodation, recreational facilities (essential for fit and active servicemen) and service married quarters are available in the immediate vicinity - as is a field ambulance unit and the Institute of Naval Medicine.

 

For the purposes of morale, cohesion, military ethos, training and also very importantly, retention, the Defence Medical Services need a proper home - yet the chosen hospital, Selly Oak, an old, tired hospital in Birmingham situated in a highly developed urban area, cannot provide this. The plan to build a £200m medical training centre and accommodation at Lichfield, 18 miles distant from Selly Oak Hospital has been cancelled for lack of funds. Forces medical staff at Selly Oak are living in an old YMCA building and lodgings. The hospital facilities are limited and there are practically no recreational facilities for staff. The move from Haslar to Birmingham has proved to be a disaster.

 

With no home to call their own and armed forces medical staff scattered amongst NHS hospitals throughout the country, morale has collapsed. The result has been resignations by the hundred. Today, there are huge staff shortages with the effect that large numbers of unwilling reservists have been called up for service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Press reports say Reserve doctors are earning up to £250,000 a year in compensation for loss in civilian earnings to make up the lack of service personnel.

 

At present Haslar is still under MoD management. It works closely with Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth and Southampton University Hospitals - taking many thousands of civilian patients annually for non-urgent surgery.

 

Queen Alexandra Hospital will have one less operating theatre and one less ward when its rebuild, currently in hand, is complete. With ambulances frequently queuing with sick patients waiting for access to A & E, it could not cope without Haslar.

 

80,000 and possibly 120,000 new homes are planned for South Hampshire in the next 20 years. That's a population increase equivalent to double that of present day Portsmouth. No hospital provision has been made for this population growth.

 

One day the magnificent zymotic (isolation) hospital in Haslar's gardens might be needed to cater for biological attack and the predicted flu pandemic. No other hospital has isolation facilities of anywhere near this capacity.

 

The threatened closure of St. Richard's Hospital in West Sussex will, if this takes place, put further strain on Queen Alexandra Hospital. (Some 84,000 cases per year.)

 

The Haslar estate as a whole is a designated National Park and Garden. Many buildings are listed. The gardens are believed to contain at least 20,000 armed forces dead arising from the hospital's 256 years of age. Not a good prospect for a future developer looking for profits. The buildings and their setting to the rear of the hospital are ideally suited for care of the elderly - where facilities in Hampshire as a whole are under severe strain.

 

To summarise the situation:

 

Defence Medical Services personnel need a proper home.

 

Our armed forces deserve a secure military hospital.

 

Our injured servicemen deserve proper medical care and facilities for recuperation in pleasant, familiar and safe surroundings.

 

Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth could not cope without the present support of Haslar and that's before any of the new growth planned for the region takes place.

 

Southampton General Hospital, a teaching hospital, can provide the advanced training needed for more senior service medical staff.

 

Royal Hospital Haslar is in all respects ready to become the tn-service military hospital and centre of medical excellence our servicemen deserve.

 

All married quarters, service accommodation, staff training and recreational facilities needed are available close by.

 

The £200m that is to be wasted in Birmingham to duplicate facilities already present at Haslar can be saved.

 

Similarly, the NHS minor injuries unit can stay at its present location in Haslar Hospital, thereby saving many hundreds of thousands of pounds under the present plan to displace the doctors' surgeries at the War Memorial Cottage Hospital in Gosport and rebuild a new minor injuries unit there.

 

Every civilised western nation has at least one military hospital. If Haslar is closed, the United Kingdom will become the exception.

 

A very high proportion of the nation's armed forces and their families are based in the South East of England. They deserve our support. Health facilities are a vital infrastructure component and thus a proper matter for the Assembly to consider.

 

Save Haslar? - Yes! It's simple common sense. How could anyone think otherwise?

 

There is still time for the HPCT, PHT, NHS, DMS, Health and MoD Ministers to get together to give the matter the attention it so clearly deserves. May I respectfully request that the members of SEERA give their full support to this resolution to signal their concern about the loss of Royal Hospital Haslar and the deficit in heath provision this will cause both for the armed forces and South Hampshire's residents.

 

22 June 2007