One side-effect of the change in hospital roles and closures (Thousands of beds to go in NHS shake-up, 19 November) is the unmentioned increased expense on the ambulance service and the charity sector.
If the NHS makes journeys to hospital longer, more ambulances and crews will be needed and, in rural areas, emergencies will place even greater calls on the air ambulance. While the NHS provides the paramedics for this latter service, the helicopters are only kept in the air by public fundraising. Living in the Yorkshire Dales, we recognise the quality of ambulance services but, even now before the cuts, Northallerton A&E is an hour’s road trip from Hawes, and Middlesbrough trauma centre even longer even with the help of blues and twos. Much of the journey is over roads that are winding, poorly maintained and dangerous in winter.
Once the patient is there, they might like visitors. That’s three separate buses each way from Hawes to Northallerton (Middlesbrough is virtually impossible by public transport in a day).
Is this really saving money or just passing the financing buck to ambulance trusts and the charity sector, and making the beneficial effects of having loved ones visit even more expensive and difficult?
John Loader
West Witton, North Yorkshire
• In your report of the proposed changes to hospital provision in Cumbria, distance was mentioned. Some women living south of Whitehaven would be expected to travel more than 50 miles for consultant care. Such a journey would mean negotiating Sellafield with shift workers leaving, and a journey on the mostly single-carriageway A595 may be behind slow-moving tractors. If women from my home suburb of Cheam in south London were expected to have their babies in Brighton there would be an outcry. At the very least there would be a dual carriageway to get there.
Janet Mansfield
Aspatria, Cumbria
• Total hospital bed numbers per 100,000 population for the year 2014 were: Germany 823, France 621, EU average for 28 countries 521, and the UK 273 (figures rounded to whole numbers). Yet a huge reduction is bed numbers is proposed. With this low base of bed numbers, there is no evidence whatsoever that increased community resources will decrease the need for hospital admission. It’s just that patients won’t get the life-saving treatment they need.
Morris Bernadt
London
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Hospital bed cuts will have a knock-on affect on ambulance services | Letters
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