Have your say on Bassetlaw Hospital's £17m urgent and emergency children’s services

Bosses at NHS Bassetlaw Clinical Commissioning Group and Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Trust want people’s views to help shape the future of urgent and emergency care at the hospital.

Some £17.6 million is being invested to develop a modern centre for emergency and urgent children’s care services at Bassetlaw Hospital, creating an ‘Emergency Village’.

Hospital bosses said the village offers an opportunity to locate the children’s assessment and children’s outpatient units next to the emergency department ‘to make best use of specialist nursing and medical staff in the hospital’, as well as the option to secure a permanent overnight inpatient service for children.

Dr Eric Kelly, CCG chairman, said: “The investment provides us with an opportunity to look at how we deliver urgent and emergency services for the people of Bassetlaw in a way which meets the needs of our community now and for years to come.

“It also allows us to address the challenges which led to the temporary closure of the overnight children’s inpatient service in January 2017 due to safety issues.

“We understood the strength of feeling from people when this change was introduced. We now want to ensure we consult widely with people before we make any further changes.”

A 12-week consultation about the scheme has now been launched and runs until the end of February.

In the survey – see bassetlawccg.nhs.uk – participants will be asked their views on what is important in the development of the Emergency Village, as well as about the future of children’s emergency care at the hospital.

David Purdue, trust chief nurse, said: “We believe, by co-locating children’s services at the front door of the hospital, we will be able to enhance our current service by providing short-stay assessments any time, day or night.

“This will mean that for many more patients and their families they will be able to receive urgent care at Bassetlaw Hospital before being safely discharged home, without being transferred to Doncaster Royal Infirmary for an overnight stay.”

He added: “This model still requires us to retain our fantastic specialist children’s nurses and recruit newly qualified nurses, but we believe this is now a very realistic prospect given the investment in Bassetlaw and co-location enables us to make more efficient use of our dedicated staff.”

For the latest information about the consultation and links to the online survey, visit the Bassetlaw CCG website.

You can also send your comments by email to: [email protected]

Or by post to: FREEPOST RTEK-SATU-YXEC NHS Bassetlaw CCG, Retford Hospital, North Road, Retford, Notts. DN22 7XF (no stamp required)