P-04 -564 - Restoration of Inpatient Beds, Minor Injuries Cover & X-Ray Unit to the Ffestiniog Memorial Hospital. Correspondence – Petitioner to the Committee 28.08.2016
I understand that the next meeting of the Petitions Committee will be on Tuesday September 13th. The agenda is not yet published so I am unaware as to whether you will have received the information you requested from the Minister, or not, in relation to the Ffestiniog Memorial Hospital by that date.
I, and several members of our campaign group, will be on holiday in early September, hence in anticipation that our petition will be considered by your Committee again on September 13th, I thought it right to provide a brief update on the activities over the summer for the Committee’s information.
1. The two CHC local committees involved have reviewed the healthcare services being provided and planned for Ffestiniog and the Welsh Uplands and the North Wales CHC Executive Committee has written to your Petitions Committee asking that you keep the Petition open
2. On July 27th, the MP for Dwyfor Meirionnydd met with the Chair and Chief Executive of Betsi Cadwaladr and with residents of the Welsh Uplands and asked that Betsi Cadwaladr conduct a formal review of the situation.
3. During the summer, Assembly Members from both Plaid Cymru and UKIP have met with residents and pledged their support to this petition for restoration of Inpatient Beds, Minor Injuries Cover & X-Ray Unit.
4. The Older People’s Commissioner has exchanged further letters with the Chief Executive of Betsi Cadwaladr and awaits his next response.
5. Health Inspectorate Wales have written to us to ensure us that they will be following up on their adverse report on the last remaining surgery in the Welsh Uplands “in the next few months”.
6. The beds in the Memorial Hospital have been replaced by a few beds in an “Intermediate Care Unit” within a local residential home. Neither the “Intermediate Care Unit”, nor the residential home in general, have any qualified nursing staff and the patients are dependent on a couple of visits per day from a district nurse during daytime hours. Medication administration has been faulty and the CSSIW has now issued the residential home with a Non-compliance notice in which it states:
We are particularly concerned that some staff members have not completed the medicines training on a regular basis- some staff members since 2008/9. We have received regulation 38 notices concerning drug errors from the home, two very recently. We cannot, therefore, be confident of the people’s safety at the home regarding medicine administration.
7. The Minister has requested that the campaign group work with the Joint Chairs of the Mid Wales NHS Collaborative Board and a meeting was held with the Chairs of that Board in July 14th.
In our opinion there is widespread recognition that the current and currently planned situation in respect of Ffestiniog and the Welsh Uplands is totally unsatisfactory and hence we ask the Committee to keep this petition open and under consideration as the various actions progress.
Yours very sincerely,
Geraint Vaughan Jones
Chair.