Hospital services and staff, Ambulance services and now District nurses.

When is this financial savagery going to stop? In a statement earlier this year Iain Mcinnes chief executive of the Scarborough & North East Yorkshire Healthcare Trust stated “ The most essential components of the recovery plan for the trust is the greater use of care in the community, with the highly specialised, highly trained district nurses at the forefront of the concept”.

He also stated “working along with the York & North Yorkshire Primary Care Trust we can reduce not only the number of patients requiring to be admitted to our hospitals but we can also reduce the length of time they stay in the hospital using community nurses for care after discharge of the patients, we will be working with the PCT to achieve this”.

It now transpires the PCT are hell bent on saving £ 800,000 from the budget for the District Nurses, So where will this leave the grand plan of ‘ Care in the Community as proposed by Iain Macinnes'? probably when lives are lost we will start to know the full cost of his ill conceived plans.

Iain Mcinnes earlier this year accused staff and campaigners of Scaremongering” all this talk of cutbacks and saving our hospitals and services is not necessary as no one is going to take anything away, however the way we deliver some services will be different” there will be no cut backs that will impact on patients care”.

Unfortunately the Public, Patients, Staff, Consultants, Advisors, Campaign groups and GP's disagreed, to date has Mr Mcinnes listened to or taken action upon any comments or suggestions made ? The answer is quite clearly no. To quote Dr SU RUFF of York NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust “ The situation at Scarborough Hospital is an illustration of the consequences of ill devised policies.

There have been cutbacks and they are impacting not only on the hospital but also on services, in his drive to cut cost for the Trust hospitals he is putting extreme pressure on the staff in the hospitals, GP's surgeries, District nurses and the Ambulance service like never before, his only concern seems to be balancing the books for the year end, if this madness continues lives will be lost on the way to our hospitals, in our hospitals and in the community at large.

With cuts in services at all our hospitals the Ambulance service primarily an emergency service is being overwhelmed ferrying patients around hospitals in an attempt to find them a bed, cost to the Trust Board nothing, cost to the ambulance service immeasurable. The ever increasing use of Community Care Nursing Services, cost to the Trust Board nothing, cost to the Community nurses budget £ 800,000 in cuts.

With the PCT and the Sca & N.E.York's Trust Board determined to save money at all costs I can see no future for the NHS as we know it in this region and to quote a member of staff at Scaborough hospital “ The result of this is that services at Scarborough Hospital are being cut by stealth to balance the budget.”

I sincerely hope that the very people who advocate these cuts will be able to live with the results of their actions on their conscience.