As you probably know on 16 March 2016 the local CCG confirmed that the children’s in-patient ward and the children’s A&E service at Ealing Hospital will close on 30 June 2016.

Please consider writing or speaking to your GP and local councillors.  Your GP or Councillor might not know or understand everything that’s going on….

If we work together we can put some pressure on the people who make these decisions.

Ask them to do something to oppose the closure of Charlie Chaplin Children’s Ward and the plans to exclude children from treatment at Ealing A&E. Here are some arguments and questions that you might like to include.-

  • Under Ealing CCG’s plans ambulances will no longer bring very sick children to Ealing’s A&E because there would no longer be paediatric doctors there.. However the vast majority of sick children are carried in to Ealing’s A&E by their parents or carers. The CCG are proposing that these seriously ill children will only be seen in the Urgent Care Centre by a GP, where they will be treated and stabilised before being transferred to another hospital.This is hugely risky as normally seriously ill children would be seen by a paediatric trained Consultant and specialist Senior Nurse in an A&E and would be able to stay overnight for observation and assessment.
  • Families quite rightly expect their children to be seen by the A&E staff. A&Es don’t exist for adults only, otherwise they are not a proper A&E.
  • How can the CCG make such a decision without publishing figures for the number of children that will be affected? Up to 7000 children could be brought in to A&E by their parents and carers, quite apart from those using the ambulance service. They will have to be assessed by the Urgent Care Centre and transferred elsewhere.
  • What guarantees have been made that the London Ambulance Service can move seriously ill children to another hospital quickly enough? They are failing to meet agreed times now and are likely to consider a child as low priority or safe once they are at Ealing Hospital. So how will children be safely and quickly transferred?
  • The delay involved in children having two lots of assessments, one at Ealing and another at the next hospital plus the prolonged journey for families is unacceptable
  • Don’t be fobbed off by the wonders of the Rapid Access Clinic meeting the needs of the majority of children – it doesn’t, it is only for non-urgent children’s cases and is not even a 24/7 service.
  • If you have a personal story of taking your child to be treated at A&E that’s even better as real stories are what it is all about!

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GPs can make a difference:  They should be standing up for the children in their surgery who may become seriously ill.  Some GPs even sit on the Ealing CCG Governing Board and voted through these cuts.
Your GP should be telling the CCG to call a halt to the closure on 30th June – it’s not safe.

 

Councillors can make a difference:  Ealing CCG often claims it values a good working relationship with Ealing Council. The Council has a legal duty to scrutinise decisions that affect the health and well-being of Ealing residents and make strong objections.  We believe our Councillors should be publicly opposed to the closure plans and urgently call on Ealing CCG to put the 30th June closure on hold for safety reasons. The more Councillors who do this, the better.
The Council should urgently take the decision to go for legal action and make a public statement condemning the closure of the Children’s Ward and the exclusion of children from the A&E. Here you can find more detailed instructions on how to contact your local councillors.

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP AND SUPPORT.

 

 

 

 

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