Council group's U- turn on health consultation response (From Western Telegraph)

Council group's U- turn on health consultation response

3:30pm Saturday 13th October 2012 in County News

Significant changes have been made to a county council response to Hywel Dda’s health consultations.

The older persons, health and well-being overview and scrutiny committee met on Friday, October 5th to discuss its response to Your Health, Your Future.

The draft report had stated that the committee “tends to agree” with proposals to transfer minor injuries from Tenby to South Pembs to GP surgeries.

But following input from local health pressure groups, including the South East Pembs Community Health Network, and discussions at the meeting, members voted to record that they “strongly disagreed” with the proposals, particularly in relation to Tenby Cottage Hospital.

Cllr Paul Miller said: “It’s not been proved to our satisfaction that provision is in place to provide these services, and having spoken to some health professionals we have no confidence that an agreement is likely to be reached in the near future.

“We are concerned the proposals leave a gap in provision in south Pembrokeshire.”

The committee also revised its draft response favouring an orthopaedic centre located at Prince Philip Hospital, Llanelli.

A meeting had been held with SWAT members Glan Phillips, a retired orthopaedic surgeon and consultant obstetrician Chris Overton, and retired surgeon Peter Milewski, of Pembrokeshire Health Concern.

That raised concerns that there would be a knock-on effect on Withybush and there were questions about whether the centre would actually do anything that isn’t already done at the Haverfordwest hospital.

The committee’s response will be put to full council before it is sent for inclusion in the health board’s consultation, which ends on October 29th.