Proposed £17million improvements to Bassetlaw Hospital supported by the community according to consultation

A new ‘Emergency Village’ including a mini Children’s Hospital has been proposed for the hospital in Worksop.

The current children’s ward at the hospital was closed to overnight admissions in 2017 due to safety reasons related to staffing.

The temporary model means that the ward is open until 9pm but only accepts referrals until 7pm.

This means that hundreds of children every year have to be transferred to Doncaster Royal Infirmary – and make the 20 mile journey – if they require an overnight stay.

Under the new plans by Bassetlaw Clinical Commissioning Group, more than half of those requiring a short time in hospital would be able to stay at the 24 hour Worksop site instead.

A consultation on the plans, which ran from December to February, showed that 84 per cent of almost 2,000 survey respondents supported option three for the new hospital.

The results will be discussed at Nottinghamshire County Council’s health scrutiny committee on March 29.

The local community, service users, staff, community groups and partner organisations were asked to respond to the survey, which put forward three options.

A total of 88 per cent of respondents expressed opposition to option one, which proposed continuing with the current model.

Parents cited the “detrimental impact to children physically and mentally of breaking the continuity of care and transferring them when they are ill”.

Option two, to build a new Children’s Assessment Unit next to the emergency department but to close the unit at 9pm each evening, was also opposed by respondents for similar reasons as option one.

Respondents said their top three priorities were timely access to clinical treatment, the availability of staff to help with queries and comfortable surroundings which are inclusive of neurodiversity.

Brendan Clarke-Smith, MP for Bassetlaw, said that the plans for the £17.6m million investment were “universally welcomed by constituents”.

Papers released ahead of the council meeting stated: “This report, along with other relevant evidence, will help to inform the final decisions on the outcome of the consultation and next steps that will be made by the CCG’s Governing Body later in Spring 2022.”

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