Scarborough Hospital: Labour candidate shares concerns over future changes

Labour's parliamentary candidate for Scarborough and Whitby has spoken about the review to services at Scarborough Hospital.
Scarborough HospitalScarborough Hospital
Scarborough Hospital

Hugo Fearnley said: “There are no firm proposals for changes to services at this point. But from the huge numbers that turned up to these initial ‘focus groups’ and voiced their genuine concerns it is clear that people are worried.

“Given the questionable outcomes of the recent review and redevelopment plans at Whitby Hospital where all sorts of guarantees were made based on its proximity to Scarborough hospital, any review that leads to downgrading of services at Scarborough could be potentially disastrous for the people of Scarborough, Whitby and the surrounding villages.

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“The enormous and spontaneous reaction online of thousands of local people rallying to the cause of their local hospital is commendable. In many ways, this issue is outside of narrow political affiliations and as someone who has lived here all my life, I share people’s concerns and want to make sure there is the high-quality healthcare services available for everyone.

“While we don’t know when the actual proposals will be available, or what they will look like, we must be sure that we are ready to stand up, scrutinise the plans and argue our case, as a united community.”

However, MP Robert Goodwill thinks that people "got unnecessarily concerned" thinking there was some sort of "secret plan".

He said: "The report was produced by accountants, not doctors, and at first scrutiny by people with clinical knowledge some of the proposals were binned and I welcome the news that the A&E and all the back-ups it needs will be safeguarded.

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“Things change in provisional care, we understand for example that our paramedics now have greater powers to treat patients before reaching a hospital and we also understand that some areas like children’s heart surgery will take place in a specialist unit, with specialist equipment rather than in a place like Scarborough.

"But it’s important that we maintain those core services like maternity and general surgery. Recently there’s been a lot of investment into new wards and new facilities in the maternity department so it wouldn’t make sense to take those services away.”