Health Services (Gloucestershire)

Yes; the situation will be even worse than the one I have described if babies are born in cars, rather than in clinical conditions in ambulances, as a result of the changes. Young mothers will have to travel further not only to attend the maternity unit, but to access pre-natal and post-natal care, which is a point that also applies to visits to young mothers who stay in hospital. It is difficult for hon. Members who represent urban areas to understand that public transport in areas such as the north Cotswolds is almost non-existent. It is difficult for someone who is about to have a baby and who may have other children with them to catch a bus from the north Cotswolds to Cheltenham and to change buses in Cheltenham to go on to Gloucester. People who are sitting in offices trying to plan larger and, in their view, better units sometimes fail to take into account the extreme difficulties of people who must travel to those hospitals, particularly when they do not have cars and live in rural areas. My PCT has estimated that every year patients in Gloucestershire travel 1 million miles to out-patient appointments. We are all concerned about global warming, and such distances seem distinctly unsustainable. One other aspect of the matter has not been emphasised sufficiently in debate this evening. At Friday’s meeting with health chiefs, it was made clear that those people who are referred to the larger units in the acute hospitals in Cheltenham and Gloucester will be discharged more quickly, which means that they will require greater care. In the announcement several Wednesday’s ago, however, we were told that community nurses, health visitors, physiotherapists and other at-home services would also be curtailed. We have got a lot of vacancies for community visitors in the north Cotswolds, and I think that when some people are discharged from hospital it will be impossible to deliver their home help care package, which will cause them hardship. I ask the Minister to consider that point carefully. I do not think that social services have been sufficiently involved in the discussions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury has said, the effect of the changes on other agencies has not been costed. As the hon. Member for Stroud has mentioned, a lot of voluntary transport activity goes on in my constituency. If patients are going to be discharged from hospital more quickly, they may be distressed and more difficult to transport. As we are finding from our constituency postbags, some of the people who have been discharged from hospital are not suitable for home care. That means that they must be readmitted, which is, again, an extra cost.