Health Care in Wantage and Grove, by Julie Mabberley of Wantage and Grove Campaign Group

The Herald last week reported that, as the NHS grapples with budget deficits, Dr Joe McManners, clinical chair of Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said patients would be asked to live more healthily and make fewer trips to hospital. Instead, he added, people in the future would be cared for more in their own homes.

My cynical view is that this is because social services (who would care for people in their own homes) aren’t funded through the NHS therefore it stops being their problem.

The Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group was set up in April 2013 as part of the reorganisation of the NHS. It receives money from the Government to buy health services on behalf of everyone living in Oxfordshire. It is responsible for agreeing how to fund healthcare across the county including hospital care, community hospitals, end of life care, mental health services, GP services and ambulances.

We are seeing the direct effects of the budget deficient here in Wantage and Grove. They want to do less – close our community hospital. The Wantage Community Hospital is scheduled to close indefinitely over fears of Legionella bacteria in the water system. Yet the trust has taken action and no bacteria have been detected this year.

The 12 inpatient beds, midwifery-led unit and physiotherapy outpatients service will be moved but we don’t know where to. As Oxfordshire is one of the worst areas for hospital bed blocking in the country, losing the beds here isn’t going to help. As I mentioned in a recent article, rehabilitation and palliative care for people who no longer require the services of an acute hospital but require greater support than can be provided in their home environment is best done close to home where family and friends can visit and patients can be encouraged to become more independent. This is one of the strengths of a community hospital – it’s closer to home!

One gentleman from Wantage recently spent eight weeks in Watlington Community Hospital and his wife had to spend three hours each way on the buses to go and visit him. The nearest maternity unit will be Wallingford and that’s over two hours away by bus.

The health services say they are formulating proposals which will be discussed with patients and the public in a consultation this autumn but are closing our community hospital imminently. There seems to be a timing gap.

Wantage Hospital League of Friends and the Save Wantage Hospital Campaign invite us all to join a March from Wantage Market Place to the Hospital on Saturday, June 18, at 10am. So please come along and show how much the Hospital means to this Community.