We demand that any plans to close Leek Moorlands Hospital be stopped now.
I am a district councillor for the area, and before retiring I spent the last twelve years of my career working at the hospital as a nurse manager (sister). So I know just how important the hospital is to the community.
As well as providing expert in-patient rehabilitation care the hospital also provides out-patient occupational and physio therapy, out patient consultant clinics and has a minor injuries department recently rebuilt at a cost of over one million pounds.
Travelling to the acute hospital in Stoke-on-Trent would be very difficult for a community that has an higher than average ageing population. We need our hospital in Leek to stay open.
Other local hospitals are in crisis from a lack of beds because the Government's expectation of treating people in their own home (Care in the Community) is not working out - people can't be sent home from hospital if there is not adequate care there for them. If Community Hospital beds are lost, the crisis will get much worse. I worked in the health service for over thirty years and have never seen anything like the situation that we find ourselves in at present. The health service seems to be imploding around us.
Please sign my petition now to demand that Leek Moorlands Hospital stays open, and is properly funded. If enough people sign, the North Staffs Clinical Commissioning Group will see that we won't stand for a cut in jobs and services at this life-saving facility.
In the light of the recent announcement that Care in the Community is not working we demand that any plans to close Leek Moorlands Hospital be stopped now.The University Hospital of the North Midlands has some of the worst figures in the country for people waiting on trolleys for more than twelve hours and also has a severe problem with so called bed blocking.
These problems are set to get much worse with the closures of community hospitals.
