Chris Loder, MP for West Dorset, has opposed Somerset NHS ICB’s decision to remove the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit (HASU) from Yeovil District Hospital. It follows a high-level meeting with Mr Loder at Frome Community Hospital on Thursday 23rd May where he challenged the Somerset NHS Board members decision on closing the Yeovil HASU.
Mr Loder has today written to Jonathan Highman, CEO of NHS Somerset following the meeting to clearly outline the reasons why he believes the business case is flawed.
Mr Loder said: ‘the public cannot understand how the taxpayer will be paying an extra £4.2m a year, when the Yeovil Hospital’s Hyper Acute Stroke Unit will be closed – and neither can I.’ The assumptions for ambulance journey times are based on 3am call outs, when most stroke responses are in the middle of the day. There is a huge disparity in a basic assumption that is totally unacceptable on which to base a case of such importance to life’.
Mr Loder’s letter to the Chief Executive is attached to this email.
The local MP has also forced Cllr Adam Dance, Lead Member for Public Health on Somerset Council, to renounce his Council portfolio responsibility. In a letter to Cllr Dance last week, Mr Loder asked why Cllr Dance was campaigning against the HASU, when his Council has not concurred, and when the Council’s chief executive voted in support of the closure on the NHS Board.
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