The East Cambs and Fenland Primary Care Trust have announced their decision to keep Doddington hospital open and to upgrade health service delivery there.

The Save Doddington Hospital campaign has proven that people power can still make a real difference in Fenland.

The PCT say that all south Fenland services, except the ambulance station, will be centred around Doddington. But they will also indicate their intention to reduce the number of beds in the Iceni Unit to zero, if over time they can prove that plans to provide comprehensive community based solutions are successful.

ffinlo Costain who co-founded the Save Doddington Hospital campaign with Dr. John Szekely of Chatteris said, “This result is a tremendous victory for common sense.

“The last three months has seen a huge display of public support for Doddington Hospital. 10,000 people have been involved in the largest outbreak of public action over a single issue in Fenland for a generation. The PCT had a moral and legal duty to take these views into account – and they clearly have.”

“Throughout the Save Doddington Hospital campaign we have supported the development of the vast majority of services outlined in the consultation - but have maintained that Doddington should be the central hub for these services.

“The PCT unfortunately created fear in Fenland because of the way they allowed information to trickle out during the early months of 2004.

“The Save Doddington Hospital has ensured that every single person in Fenland knew about the PCT’s plans – and knew that the future of Doddington hospital was in their hands.

“While we worked hard to save the hospital from closure we have also worked hard to promote the elements of the PCT’s plans that we supported.

"As soon as I knew that the campaign had the support of local people across Fenland – it was certain that we would win this battle. Now trick is to make the peace work for our community.”

Background:

The SDH campaign started because months of delay by the PCT had led to widespread fear and uncertainty amongst the general public about the future of south Fenland health services – and the future of Doddington hospital.

Information trickled out from the PCT through a number of official and unofficial sources and rumours spread like wild fire. These rumours led to panic amongst patient groups and staff working within south Fenland health services.

The SDH campaign gave Fenlanders something positive to concentrate on.

ffinlo said “The PCT has acknowledged to me that they handled the consultation badly, and that their preferred option was to build a new facility away from Doddington. The fact that Doddington will remain at the centre of south Fenland health services is entirely down to the 10,000 people who stood up for what they believed in.”

Future:

This battle is won. Doddington will remain open. It's time to ensure the peace is constructive.

ffinlo Costain met with Audrey Bradford the PCT Chief Executive last Friday.

“I offered to work constructively with the PCT to ensure that plans that are right for the people of Fenland are promoted and explained properly to everyone across the region.

“Information is absolutely key to making people feel they have a good local health service. But information is what the PCT has proven it’s bad at giving. I have offered to help the PCT to get their message across. But I have also made it clear that if I disagree with individual proposals then I will continue to question them.

“The Save Doddington Hospital campaign has created a real head of steam for active local and community based health care. The PCT could choose to work with campaigners now that the Save Doddington campaign is over to make sure that the public continue to be properly involved in choosing local health services. I hope they do,” said ffinlo.

One outstanding issue is what will happen to land the PCT considers surplus follow the re-development of the Doddington site. 

ffinlo said, “Any surplus land at Doddington should not be sold off. Instead, through a Public Private Finance initiative the PCT should lease the land to a developer for them to build affordable housing for key workers. Through this arrangement the developer would collect rents from the houses (on an agreed escalator) to bring them into profit, but ultimately (after, say, 25 years) the land would revert to the PCT. The PCT would get funds now and the developer would gather profit over time. This is a relatively common win-win solution and the PCT have now promised to consider this option fully.”

Save Doddington Hospital campaigners will now be working with existing groups to ensure that everyone feels part of what we hope will be a mini-revolution in local health services in Fenland.

END

---