Dear Mr Pilling,                      

I thought that you might like to see this letter which I have sent to Alan Johnson.

Regards,
Dorothy Featherstone

15th September 2007

Dear Mr Johnson,                              

Further to my letter of 25th July Since when the job loss has been "amended to 50 along with the loss of 3 more wards at Bridlington Hospital, including the cardiac unit". Is this supposed to be good news??                             

As I mentioned before Mike Pilling is running a campaign to save our Hospital. The following has just appeared on his website "Recently a person died in Bridlington and in her will she bequeathed a large amount of equipment all brand new for the Cardiac Monitoring Unit (CMU) because the equipment in the CMU is out-dated; we are informed this new equipment at present is Boxed in the Priory ward in Bridlington Hospital un-opened; it as been there for many months, what does that tell you?  It should be on the wards saving lives." His website is http://www.savebridlingtonhospital.co.uk   I am sure that you are aware that it is illegal not to carry out the wishes expressed in a will and no doubt you will make the Scarborough Hospital Trust aware of this.

Yours sincerely,

Dorothy Featherstone

Reply from Paul Larkin (On behalf of Alan Johnson)

Dear Ms Featherstone,

Thank you for your further email of 15 September 2007 to Alan Johnson about Bridlington Hospital.  As we explained previously, the large amount of correspondence sent to Mr Johnson means that it is not always possible for him to reply personally.  I have been asked to reply.

The Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust has announced that a new approach to their financial strategy has been agreed with NHS Yorkshire and the Humber. These changes mean that the Trust's current debt does not need to be addressed in the financial strategy for the current year meaning that the number of post reductions will be nowhere near the figure which was recently reported. The Trust has already identified £8 million of savings over the summer period and is working hard to identify the final £2 million which will enable it to achieve financial balance for the year.

As you know, the Trust has indicated that £2 million would equate to approximately 50 posts, but it is looking initially at other ways to find these savings. The Trust regrets the loss of any jobs and if post reductions do occur, the Trust hopes that the majority of the posts which are to be displaced will be lost through natural staff turnover, vacancy management and careful control of overtime claims and agency staff.  Voluntary redundancies will only be considered after these options have been fully exhausted and compulsory redundancies are an absolute last resort.

There will be no impact on clinical services.

I hope this reply is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Paul Larkin
Customer Service Centre
Department of Health

So I sent a further Email to Alan Johnson:-

Dear Mr Johnson,

Thank you for Mr Larkin's response regarding my Email of 15th Inst..

However I note that he makes no mention of the following paragraph:-

"As I mentioned before Mike Pilling is running a campaign to save our Hospital. The following has just appeared on his website "Recently a person died in Bridlington and in her will she bequeathed a large amount of equipment all brand new for the Cardiac Monitoring Unit (CMU) because the equipment in the CMU is out-dated; we are informed this new equipment at present is Boxed in the Priory ward in Bridlington Hospital un-opened; it as been there for many months, what does that tell you?  It should be on the wards saving lives." His website is http://www.savebridlingtonhospital.co.uk   I am sure that you are aware that it is illegal not to carry out the wishes expressed in a will and no doubt you will make the Scarborough Hospital Trust aware of this."

Am I to assume from this that it has been ignored ??????   As were issues raised in my first letter.

We are all aware of the fact that whoever has written to you has received a "standard letter" which does nothing to allay our fears. How many lives will be lost before you start to listen to us. We have heard so many lies from the Hospital trust - no one in this area trusts a word they utter.

Yours sincerely,

Dorothy Featherstone (Mrs)