Last updated at 17:16, Tuesday, 15 January 2013

A PUSH to protect the people of South Cumbria from seeing life-saving services moved further from their homes has been dealt a fresh blow.

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The University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has lost its appeal to prevent specialist vascular services helping people with circulatory problems being taken away from Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

The trust is now considering taking legal action.

The RLI provides top-level treatment for people across South Cumbria, while more routine care is carried out at its other sites, including Furness General Hospital in Barrow.

Ray McGuire has had six vascular operations at RLI – two of which saw him taken to hospital in an ambulance.

The 67-year-old, of Newport Street, Barrow, said: “I firmly believe that they’re playing with people’s lives. I’ve spoken to consultants personally and they’re all against it.”

Mr McGuire appeared in the Evening Mail in October to protest at the moves, alongside his friend and fellow Barrow resident, Gordon Delves, whose leg was amputated in January last year due to poor circulation.

Mr Delves has been back in the RLI since the end of October, Mr McGuire said, as doctors are now battling to save his other leg.

Mr McGuire said: “We’ve all been rallying round taking Joy (Mr Delves’ wife) back and forth, but the impact it’s had on her is horrendous.

“So imagine her having to go to Preston. It’s just not feasible.”

UHMBT had asked for a regional review of vascular services, requesting plans for high-level surgery to be centralised to be overturned.

The proposal is for three specialist intervention centres to serve Cumbria, Lancashire, Wigan and Dumfries and Galloway, while routine surgery and outpatient appointments would be kept at patients’ local hospitals.

The planned sites are The Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, Royal Blackburn Hospital and Royal Preston Hospital.

Having been told the trust’s appeal to NHS Lancashire had not been upheld, UHMBT interim chairman, Sir David Henshaw, said: “The trust is extremely disappointed with this outcome.

“The trust board will ensure that it works with commissioners for the benefit of patients, however it is now considering its legal position in respect of this and the possible grounds for a judicial review of the decision, which we believe is fundamentally flawed.”

Westmorland and Lonsdale MP, Tim Farron, who has been campaigning for the review to be overturned, also hit out over the decision to reject the appeal.

He has called on county councillors from Cumbria and Lancashire to use their powers within the health and wellbeing overview and scrutiny committees to ask for the decision to be reviewed by the Department of Health.

He said: “We may sadly have lost this battle, but we will keep fighting until the war is won.”

First published at 16:10, Tuesday, 15 January 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk