25th. October 2011.

Following the Sunday Times front page coverage of NHS Lothian's patients being offered surgery as far afield as Harrogate and Northumberland, they have gone into a tailspin of denial and obfuscation.

The question of patients being offered surgery elsewhere was raised by me at the meeting of the St. John’s Hospital Stakeholders Group on 14 th. September. As previously reported on this website, we have serious concerns about taking patients elsewhere, when a moderate investment at our local hospital would secure further surgical services there.

What is interesting is that at the September meeting, Sandra Mair, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at NHS Lothian, undertook to bring figures to the next meeting. At the October meeting of the Group, no additional figures were provided. No information was provided.

It was therefore interesting, to put it mildly, to read that according to Jackie Sansbury the Chief Operating Officer NHS Lothian don’t have figures for those patients offered remote alternative locations for their operations, so to what extent they are massaging the figures remains a mystery.

But wait! Hold the front page! I hear today that they have miraculously found the figures, and that the numbers are “small”. So small in fact that they couldn’t find them in the first place!

NHS Lothian really needs to get hold of itself. This has all the hallmarks of the ACS debacle earlier this year, where they were forced into another humiliating climb-down. If they can’t deal with this issue effectively, then heaven help them when the next instalment is released!

Councillor Gordon Beurskens.

Action to Save St. John’s Hospital.

Whitburn & Blackburn Ward (7)