Click on the green button to see an interview with Abigail Rowe from the Support St Richard's campaign.

Message from the group:

We are devastated that the West Primary Care Trust (PCT) is recommending St Richard's to be a Local General Hospital.

The Board of the PCT will be voting to accept this recommendation next Wednesday, 4th June at the Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Park near Gatwick.

By St Richard's being recommended to be a Local General Hospital, it means that patients will LOSE full emergency A&E, consultant-led maternity and in-patient paediatrics in Chichester.

If you need emergency A & E you will have to travel to Worthing or Portsmouth.

There are many reasons that we believe the PCT should be making St Richard's the Major General Hospital and not downgrading it and we urge you to contact them immediately as they will be voting to accept their recommendations next Wednesday at 2pm.

We have less than a week to make them see sense and recommend St Richard's to be the Major General Hospital.

The following are just some of the reasons why we must keep full services at St Richard's, Chichester.

ACCESS
St Richard's catchment area is approximately 441 square miles, compared to 188 square miles for the Worthing catchment area.

Journey times to St Richard's as the MGH will be a maximum of 47 minutes, compared to 63 minutes if Worthing were to be the MGH.

If you live on the Manhood Peninsula or in the Downs you will have average journey times of over an hour which could be the difference between life and death.

Ambulances are not meeting their target times in rural areas and therefore people are being disadvantaged who live in the more rural areas of the county.

The PCT decided that blue light times should not be part of the decision making process, and yet it is patients in the north of the downs, West Wittering and the more rural areas who will not only be picked up late by the ambulances but will have further to travel for emergency care.

MATERNITY AND PAEDIATRICS
As a Local General Hospital, St Richard's will have NO consultant-led maternity unit and NO in-patient paediatrics.

Mothers and children will have to travel to Worthing and Portsmouth for care.

Patients choose to come to St Richard's to have their babies from outside the current catchment area and therefore their Patient Choice will taken away.

St Richard's has a dedicated paediatric A&E department and this will be lost.

Developing the paediatric unit at St Richard's would provide the most sustainable configuration for paediatric services across Sussex, why has the PCT chosen to downgrade us?

DEPRIVATION
Deprivation affects rural West Sussex as much as the urban areas in the county and St Richard's provides the best access to hospital care for the isolated rural communities in West Sussex.

So why are the PCT making life even harder for patients in the more rural areas, many of which have inadequate public transport.

GROWING POPULATION
The population in Chichester is growing faster than anywhere else in the county.

There are three key groups within the population for whom good access to emergency healthcare and specialist services are essential: the very young (aged 0-4); women of childbearing age (aged 15-44); the very old (aged 85+).

For each of these age groups the population is growing more rapidly within the St Richard's catchment areas than in that for Worthing.

TOURISM
There are an estimated 6 million visitors per year to the St Richard's catchment area, with more visitors going to West Wittering beach than to Windsor Castle!

Many of the visitors are children and they will not be able to receive A & E treatment in Chichester, they will have to travel to Worthing or Portsmouth when the roads are clogged up in the summer months.

It is ludicrous to take away the full A & E department in Chichester. The PCT decided that tourism was not a problem with regards to access in their decision making.

They need to be told again what the roads on the Manhood Peninsula and on the A27 are like in the summer months.

STUDENTS
Chichester College and the University of Chichester have 21,900 students between them of which only 4,300 originate from the Chichester area.

Both institutions have ambitious plans for expanding the numbers of staff and students in Chichester and Bognor Regis which will result in an increasing call on the services of a Major General Hospital.

Students will have to be transported to Worthing or Portsmouth and many of them do not have their own vehicles so there will be a greater call on the ambulance service.

OLYPMIC TRAINING CAMPS
The Chichester Gold Consortium has successfully bid to host Olympic Training Camps for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The bid was successful as the Consortium was able to demonstrate, amongst many things, close access to a major hospital and A & E department.

HOSPITAL SITE
St Richard's is situated on 35 acres and has 60,000 square metres of buildings.

Unique in the county is has the only helicopter landing pad always available for immediate access which does note require an ambulance transfer to A&E.

Why downgrade a hospital which has the perfect room for expansion at very low capital outlay?

Worthing Hospital is already surrounded by heavy development with no room to expand other than upwards, at huge cost.

STAFFING
Worthing Hospital has one A&E consultant and has been unable to fill the remaining posts for several months.

However, St Richard's has five A&E consultants and always has many high calibre applicants applying for its vacant posts.

TOP HOSPITAL
St Richard's is a top hospital winning many awards for its excellence including Top 40 Hospitals at the CHKS award ceremony in April for the eighth consecutive year, the only hospital in England to have achieved this.

The awards are based on the evaluation of around 20indicators, developed by CHKS, covering clinical effectiveness, health outcomes, efficiency and patient experience and quality of care.

St Richard's is also rated among the top 20% of NHS Trusts in England for its overall patient care.

Why downgrade such a fantastic hospital with top calibre staff?

WHO MADE THIS RIDICULOUS DECISION?
The Non-Executive Directors of the Primary Care Trust who have taken part in the decision are the following:

Mike Harris, newly elected Chairman, lives in the north of the county.

Brian Angers, lives in Storrington in the Worthing Catchment Area.

Margaret Bamford, lives in Findon in the Worthing Catchment Area.

Jean Barclay, lives in Worthing.

Barabara Wilkins, was once Chairman of Worthing Community Health Council.

David King, a former Borough Councillor for Worthing.

Malcolm Liles, lives in Crawley.

Norman Robson, the only Non-Executive who lives in the West of the County in Sidlesham.

The board has a huge bias to Worthing and we don't believe that they will not have been able to exercise complete neutrality in reaching their decision.

PLEASE CONTACT THE PRIMARY CARE TRUST NOW AND GIVE THE ABOVE REASONS FOR THEM TO RECONSIDER THEIR RECOMMENDATION.

Email: john.wilderspin@westsussexpct.nhs.uk or mike.harris@westsussexpct.nhs.uk or phone 0800 707 6975.

Protest with us at the meeting at the Copthorne Hotel at 2pm on Wednesday, June 4.

We have a limited amount of seats available on our coach.

Please phone 07802 783604.

Thank you to everyone for your constant support over the last two years.

Nearly 140,000 people signed our petition, over 15,000 wrote personal letters to the PCT and 15,000 took to the streets in support of our fantastic hospital.

Please support us again, we must not have St Richard's downgraded.

What do you think? Click here to send a letter or leave a comment below.

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