EPPING FOREST: Patients voice fears after hospital cuts announcement (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

EPPING FOREST: Patients voice fears after hospital cuts announcement

2:46pm Wednesday 3rd August 2011 in Epping Forest News By Clare Hardy

CUTS of up to 250 staff and 60 beds at a major hospital serving the district have been branded as brutal by patients and their families.

The NHS trust that runs Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow has announced that it needs to cut £17 million from its budget this financial year and a further £22 million over the following two years.

Lynne Snow, 56, of Willingale Road, Loughton, who was treated at the hospital for a broken hip in May last year, said: “They were terribly short-staffed when I was there. I noticed overnight, it was all agency staff.

“The nursing staff were run off their feet, but I can’t criticise them. It was spotless.

“If they’re going to cut all those beds, someone will suffer.”

Vivienne Clarke, 72, of Colbrook Gardens, Loughton, saw her four-year-old grandson Kian rushed to the hospital with meningitis in January, after a doctor at Whipps Cross failed to recognise his symptoms.

She said: “You can’t just keep on having cuts. You give them an inch and they will take a yard.

“Princess Alexander have been wonderful. I think the nurses and doctors deserve every penny they get and to keep on making these cuts - something’s going to affect the treatment.”

Melanie Walker, the trust’s chief executive, said in a statement that it would try to ‘increase efficiency’ by reducing the average time patients spend in hospital, discharging A&E patients who do not need to stay overnight and relying less on staff supplied by agencies.

She added: “We intend to provide the best for our patients and protect our services but we can only do that if we tackle the financial issues we face now.

“Some tough decisions will have to be made but our doctors and nurses are working with us to make them.

“Our focus remains on the needs of patients, so we are concentrating our money-saving efforts on administrative, managerial and other support functions, to protect the front line.”

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