Sirs
I am not sure where you are sourcing your information, but the following statement about the closure of the Minor Injury Units (MIU); “It was a clinically-led, GP-supported decision to close the MIUs at Savernake and Devizes, not the PCT working in isolation” is just plainly wrong.
Virtually every GP, as far as I can remember, in the Savernake Hospital catchment, either made a statement or signed a petition that was firmly against the closure of Savernake MIU. Clinicians working in the PCT were incredibly worried about leaving the eastern side of Wiltshire without a MIU.
It was very much the PCT working in isolation and putting their collective fingers in their ears and loudly singing la-la-la whilst the public were striving to make their voice heard.
As for a “clinically led” led decision? That stands about as much scrutiny as the slogan “We’re bringing care closer to home” made around the same time.
Yours
Val Compton
Marlborough
MNO comment: As the Judge in the 2009 Judicial Review made clear ”…there was a mix of reasons, clinical, operational and financial, for the decision to close the Minor Injuries Unit at Savernake Hospital….Some of the reasons were clinical, in the broad sense of that term”. And he went on to note that the decision had been ‘endorsed’ by the PCT’s ‘Professional Executive Committee, a committee of clinicians’.
