Stephen Isaia, Chairman,
Radnor House Surgery Patient Participation Group
c/o Radnor House Surgery
25 London Road
Ascot SL5 7LN
6 June 2012
Dear Councillor Yong
I wanted to formally thank you for addressing the subject of the future for Heatherwood Hospital at
our Radnor House Surgery Patients’ Participation Group (PPG) meeting on the 30th April this year.
Our whole group were very pleased to hear your approach to overview & scrutiny of local key
health issues, and your thoughts on the best approach to ensuring the views and wishes of the
patients, tax payers and voters of our surgery are correctly heard by the Regional Health Authority.
You may recall we invited you to attend our meeting as a result of many requests from our PPG and
larger Virtual PPG membership for us to take action on the importance of keeping the local hospital
provision in place at Heatherwood.
Following the meeting we emailed all members of our wider PPG with the following request for
views:
Dear Radnor House Patient Participation Group members,
In response to questions received regarding the future of Heather wood Hospital, I wanted to let
you know the outcome of the invitation for Windsor and Maidenhead Councillor Lynda Yong to
address our PPG. Councillor Yong is Deputy Lead Member-Health, and sits on the Adult
Community Services and Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel.
Councillor Yong is a supporter of the importance of keeping Heather wood open, and confirmed Dr
Rawlinson's understanding that Heather wood would not close, as covered in the PPG minutes of
the 19th March.
Councillor Yong stated that the Regional Health Authority consultation process giving local people
the opportunity to say what services they would want to see remain at Heatherwood, and what
services they would want to see added, is now getting underway and urged us to put forward our
PPG's views. This was balanced with the need to accept that A&E, with the necessary specialist
support, would not be part of the possibilities for the site. The PPG discussed what new services
could be suggested such as a GP wing to carry out minor procedures, or a rehabilitation unit for
recovery from major injuries and wanted to canvas the wider PPG's views in this process.
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In order to represent Radnor House PPG's views on this important subject we would like to invite
all virtual members to send their views and suggestions, with any supporting information or
rationale, to be-pct.PPG@nhs.net by 25th May. The PPG will coordinate and provide the views
and information to Councillor Yong who will seek similar from the other PPGs in the area, allowing
our PPG's views and wishes to be coordinated and provide maximum effect on the consultation
process.
Thank you for your time with this important element of the future health care of our area.
Stephen Isaia - Chairman - Radnor House PPG
What follows are the collated views from our cross age and gender wider PPG. In some cases PPG
members conducted their own informal question time with local people to inform their views and
comments.
As Tax payers, Voters and Patients we want, require and believe we are entitled to a local hospital
with easy access from the local area. This is important to all, and particularly our growing elderly
population.
The level of care, skill and services provided by the dedicated team at Heatherwood was evident in
all replies received and is clearly an important factor in the thinking of local people when compared
to the larger remote hospital experience many now fear.
Many people raised the importance of maintaining the local minor injuries unit, GP’s, SEBDOC, blood
tests, ultrasound, x-rays and planned surgery plus respite and rehab under one roof at
Heatherwood. This is seen as vital to the provision of future local quality care.
The plan for more home births is a major concern. If there aren’t enough midwifes to staff the
birthing centre at Heatherwood now, how will there be sufficient to give the necessary care and
attention to individual Mums in their own homes? There are real concerns that the current
Gynaecology service also needs to stay local.
A number of older people, 65+, were concerned at the apparent loss of dementia and respite care,
and felt that this is a major issue for them and their families. This provision is vital, and needs to be
local. Heatherwood fits the bill well.
Whilst there does seem to be a realization of the need to have regional centres of excellence for
major casualty and other major health events, there were a number of builds on what could be
added to Heatherwood, including rehabilitation services. A PPG member had researched the
history of Heatherwood and found it was once owned by the United Armed Services Fund and
converted into a hospital for 1914-18 war ex-service personnel’s children. General patients were
admitted alongside military needs in 1922. There is therefore a good precedent and geographic
rationale for re-establishing the sharing of the facility with the important injury rehabilitation needs
of our military personnel.
We received a number of views on the possibility of a public-private partnership. All made it clear
that it would only be acceptable as a means of keeping all the current services at Heatherwood, and
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the majority would not want to see any more than 25% of the total space given over to the private
sector .
Finally there were general concerns that the approach to the future of Heatherwood Hospital has
been driven by the Regional Heath Authority and Wexham Park Trusts’ needs and not necessarily in
the best interests of local peoples’ health care requirements. The original options presented at the
town meeting (Ascot Race Course) all seemed to be based on solving the “as is” problems of the
Wexham Park Trust and not on the “to be” future health care requirements of the local population
of the Windsor- Ascot area.
A member asked if the review showed a clearly better outcome for local health care provision if
Heatherwood were to go into partnership with Frimley Park Hospital, would local quality health care
be put first or would bureaucracy be allowed to get in the way of the correct outcome for patients?
Our PPG will continue to respond to the expressed views, wishes and importance our members
place on this subject and will publicise future public consultation meetings in the reception area of
our surgery, and make details available to all patients who receive the surgery newsletter by email,
with emails also being sent to all Virtual PPG members.
The PPG are happy for you to represent the contents of this paper to other PPGs in the area as well
as the Health Authority. We would value your thoughts on how best to take all relevant PPGs views
forward, perhaps a meeting of the PPG Chairs to formulate a joint approach? We would be happy to
meet in order to ensure that the strong local views are understood by the Regional Heath Authority
as well as offering help with their planning process for the future.
Regards,
Stephen Isaia
Chairman
Radnor House Surgery PPG
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