Emergency petition to be presented at the full council meeting on July 18th 2019

SSTHC have been in correspondence with the leaders of both South Tyneside and Sunderland Council expressing our concerns about what the CEO of South Tyneside and Sunderland Hospital Trust - Ken Bremner - has stated on record.

He has said that because NHS England and the government won't fund Phase-2 of the "Path to Excellence", local health leaders are seeking £50-million from our local councils (£35-million from South Tyneside Council and £15-million from Sunderland Council). Without this money the Path to Excellence programme will not go ahead.

Our local councils are not responsible for the capital programme of the NHS. The fact that NHS England has refused to fund Phase-2 of the "Path to Excellence" calls into question the value of this scheme for the residents who pay for council services.

Yet another vital service - 24/7 specialised palliative end-of-life hospice care - is (at the moment) no longer available to the people of South Tyneside with the sudden closure of St Clare's Hospice.

We are also concerned that the new Trust wants to sell-off this wonderful facility at Primrose. Primrose Hill Hospital / St Clare's has been a very appropriate site for end-of-life care. St Clare's has been providing end-of-life care to the people of South Tyneside for over 30 years. It is held in high regard by the many people who have had a loved one or family member die peacefully in their care. It is a huge loss to our community. Despite this the South Tyneside Clinical Commission Group (CCG) made the horrendous claim that people were just using it as a day centre and have been for 20 years.

The Save South Tyneside Hospital campaign demands the restoration of a 24-hour specialised palliative end-of-life care service to be provided in South Tyneside, just as it is provided in Sunderland at St Benedicts. The CCG must utilise the skills of those nurses that provided such a wonderful 24/7 palliative care service at St Clare's - until it was closed.

The Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) that controls health provision throughout the City of Sunderland has undertaken a "consultation" about the provision of primary/urgent health care. They want to close the Primary Care Centres at Houghton, Bunny Hill and Washington and replace them with just one urgent treatment centre at Pallion.

Health Service surveys have shown that it is important for people to keep their urgent care services near to home. Since the closure of the urgent care service at Palmers' Hospital in Jarrow, people from Jarrow, Hebburn and Boldon have also had to use Bunny Hill.