Assurances over Scarborough Hospital future

Published on Oct 15, 2018

You may have seen recent social media posts or heard rumours about the future of Scarborough Hospital.

York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Scarborough and Ryedale CCG and East Riding CCG, working under the auspices of the Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership, are undertaking an independent review of the configuration of Scarborough acute services.

This review is at a very early stage, and contrary to what has been reported in the media and on social media, we are not in formal consultation and there are no proposals for what any of our services might look like in the future.

The review is looking at the services that are currently provided and through detailed analysis will seek to understand the health needs of our population now, what they might look like in the future, and how these might be met.

We have been as open as possible and involved as many clinicians as we can in the early stage of this review. This work is likely to take many months and there will be opportunities for staff and the public to get involved.

The events that are taking place this week (Monday 15 October in Scarborough and Tuesday 16 October in Bridlington) are not to consult on proposals, as no proposals have been developed.

The meetings, aimed at people who are members of various local health networks and groups, are to seek input into the development of evaluation criteria on options for sustainable services in Scarborough.

Healthcare is changing, people are living longer and there is a growing need for different types of health and care services, which are often provided outside of hospitals. This should mean that, with increased out-of-hospital care, fewer people will require the types of services that acute hospitals currently provide. Whilst this is good news for patients, it puts pressure on hospitals such as Scarborough where we are already seeing challenges in recruiting enough specialist staff or seeing enough patients to make services sustainable. We need to think about how we can do things differently to provide the best services for local people, not just finding a ‘quick fix’ for the problems we face now, but finding longer term solutions that meet local needs.

We have committed to retaining an emergency department in Scarborough, and to do anything else would be unthinkable not least due to the impact on other hospitals and the local population. Our efforts are focussed on what we have to have at Scarborough and what innovative staffing models we can develop to safely deliver them if traditional staffing is not possible.