Memorandum from Councillor Peter Langdon
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
AT THE
SOUTH EAST
ENGLAND REGIONAL
ASSEMBLY PLENARY
MEETING, 15 NOVEMBER
2006
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
£45 million to become the country's tn-service hospital during
the early to mid-1990s. 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 £200 million 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 £200 million 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
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