HEALTH bosses have made a renewed attempt to allay concerns over impending changes to stroke services in the area – amid claims the public has gone into "panic mode" over the announcement.
At a meeting of the North East Lincolnshire Health and Wellbeing Board this week, Cathy Kennedy, deputy chief executive of the local Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), took the opportunity to stress that the stroke unit at Grimsby was not closing, and that the decision to remove hyperacute stroke services from the hospital was a temporary measure.
And speaking at the same meeting, Karen Jackson, chief executive of the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, re-emphasised that the changes would see the current 12-hours-a-day five-days-a-week service replaced by 24/7 hyperacute cover.
Their comments came as Anne Hames, chairman of the CCG's Community Forum, suggested that many people were under the impression that the withdrawal of the hyperacute service would be permanent.
She said: "People are hearing what they want to hear. It is this critical word temporary that's been lost and there has been a panic mode.
"There's a lot of assumptions going on and I think we really need to highlight to people that that's not the case."
As reported, the trust announced in August that it would be temporarily consolidating hyperacute stroke services at the Scunthorpe site in order to provide 24/7 cover.
The post-hyperacute and rehabilitation service at Grimsby will not be affected.
Ms Kennedy said: "There will still be a stroke unit at the Grimsby site, but the initial assessment for the first 72 hours will be centralised at one site.
"There are concerns that this is a permanent change, which is not the case. There are concerns that it has been done in an attempt to avoid consultation, which is not the case."
She revealed that the trust was aiming to introduce the temporary changes by next month.
Asked when a permanent solution would be introduced, she said: "We are looking to be coming out and talking about the future shape of the service early in the new year but we will have to go through a formal consultation.
"We can't leapfrog to where we are to an early decision but equally we don't want to be sitting here in a year's time without anything having been decided."
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