An MP has written to the Health Secretary after it was claimed a man who had a suspected broken leg was turned away the A&E department at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.
The MP for the South Lakes, Tim Farron, said he was contacted by one of his constituents who lives in Kendal, who needed to attend hospital after a fall on Monday night.
Kendal’s Westmorland General Hospital doesn’t have an Accident and Emergency department, with the RLI the nearest available facility. There is an Urgent Treatment Centre there that operates from 8am to 10pm, seven days a week.
Mr Farron said the man had to be driven by a friend to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary after he was told there were no available ambulances.
But, they were informed that there would be an eight hour wait to be seen, and were advised to go home and try again the next day.
Writing to Wes Streeting, Mr Farron said: “Secretary of State, this is an absolutely appalling state of affairs, and not what my constituents deserve.
“Despite the best efforts of the dedicated staff who work there, A&E at Lancaster is a terrible bottleneck; it’s always congested, in part because it is too small to be fit for purpose.
“Our local NHS had been working incredibly hard on plans for a new hospital in Lancaster. They’d designed it, identified a new site, and had just begun a consultation with residents. That was until your department announced that work on a new hospital won’t be allowed to start until 2035 at the earliest.
“The congestion in A&E is also partly due to 25% of the beds at Lancaster being occupied by people who cannot leave hospital because of inadequate social care.
“And yet, the absolutely critical review the Government has commissioned into social care won’t finish reporting back until 2028.
“Secretary of State, while we wait another three years for the review into social care to conclude, and while we wait another 10 years for work to start on building a new A&E in Lancaster, please will you outline what immediate work your department is doing to reduce the perilous state of our local health services?”
Earlier this year it was announced that the building of a new hospital to replace the Royal Lancaster Infirmary may not start until 2038.
The government announced the timescales for its New Hospital Programme, saying the expected construction start date on a new RLI will be between 2035 and 2038, at a cost of £1bn to £1.5bn.
They said this was a "realistic timetable" and that the previous Tory government's commitment to deliver 40 new hospitals around the country by 2030 was "behind schedule, unfunded and therefore undeliverable".
The new hospital to replace the Royal Lancaster Infirmary is being earmarked for a preferred site at Bailrigg East close to Lancaster University, it was announced in December 2023, after the 94-acre greenfield site was sold to the NHS.
Read more:
Work on building new Lancaster hospital to start between 2035 and 2038
Beyond Radio contacted University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust for a response to Mr Farron's letter, but at time of publication of this article, had received no response.
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