Lets hope it works!!!
 

As of 09:00 today !st Nov 2007 the A&E at BGH (Burnley) is downgraded and there could be a large influx of extra patients at RBH (Blackburn).

link from Telegraph here (I hope)

Hospital Bosss A E Pledge (from Lancashire Telegraph)

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i cannot think this will work at all, its bad enough now up at ROYAL BLACKBURN its going to be chaos.

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Does this mean that all the firework casualties from the Burnley area get ferried to Blackburn?

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What this means is that emergencies requiring resuscitation, intensive care, 'blue light' emergencies will go to Blackburn. People requiring urgent but less serious care than 'blue light' will go to one of the Urgent Care Centres at Blackburn or Burnley dependent on where they live.

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Thank goodness for that - and thanks for the detailed info Lettie

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still a ball ache though, which bright spark is this down too!!

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No Panther Ball ache is not a blue light so will be dealt with at Burnley

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I would really love to be able to bang on someones door and play hell at them for this but unfortunately, this has not been a local decision. This is all part of the Government's grand scheme for the NHS services. The only decisions made at North West level have been where to put the services. Local NHS has been told that they cannot have both hospitals with all of the services, so they have been split. A&E has gone to the hospital with the majority of population. To compensate, Consultant Maternity Services will go to Burnley with Midwife-Led services in Blackburn & Rossendale.

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No it won't... It will be dealt with by the Urgent Care Centre at Royal Blackburn because you live in RBH catchment area.:D

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Just make sure you get it between 8am & 8pm and you can go to Accy Vic :)

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LOL....very funnyAttachment 10300...nice one guysAttachment 10301

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Although it's a ridicolous decision just taking Burnley & Nelson in to account, it should also be remembered that this scheme covers places like Barnoldswick & Earby which even to Burnley was at least 20 minutes on a good day.

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I must admit i do think this is going to be a very bad idea

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Interesting point about the woman in charge of it all;

"Ms Cubbon is leaving the Trust in Aptil after three years to be nearer her parents in Devon, and will begin a job as chief executive of Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust."

So in other words I'll make the decisions to screw peoples lives up then clear off back to where I live :mad:

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I read in a local rag some 18 months ago that there would be nobody farther than 10mins. away from The Royal Blackburn. A mate of mine lives on a farm in Trawden, so the 10min rule is rubbish. It takes more than 10mins. to get through Colne (on a good day) Even in a fast car from the end of the motorway at Colne, to get to Blackburn in 10mins is pushing it.

The bottom line here is that some poor soul will lose their life. It's madness. :(

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is that without all the traffic on that stretch of road, especially and tea time....rush hour!!
they are bloody dreaming!!!

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Too right they are dreaming, but as previously said, the decision has come from Government. All that has been allowed to happen on a local level is the distribution of services to the best of anybody's ability. Local services have been dictated to that they cannot have A&E and Intensive care in both areas. If it is the case that we cannot have services in both places then....... Where would you put them??

My choice would have been Accrington but they ran AVH down years ago and there is no room for expansion. On my voting form (which we all got through the post about 12-18 months ago but many of us ignored), I added the extra option of services at both sites and made my feelings known about the reasons why but it has made not an apeth of difference.

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This is when you have to hope the Air Ambulance is available if and when you need it. They have now got a heliport (think thats what they are called) just outside AandE at Royal Blackburn. So it seems if you are going to get to the hospital in the times that were predicted it will be by Air Ambulance.

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I can see the repercussions of this which wont end being good in the end because lives could be lost in its extremity & the concern is with all this cost cutting [cos don't forget its not about services its about cost] that patient waiting lists are going to be considerably higher certainly at BRH - never mind the strains it already has & the influx of immigrant workers, stretched to the limit :(

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The way I am reading it is that nobody in the Blackburn area will suffer at all. There will be a more specialised blue light service with highly trained staff to meet these type of emergencies.

Others will still be able to go to the urgent care centre in both Blackburn and Burnley with no interruption of the blue light patients.

The only problem appears to be the travelling time for Burnley blue light cases, 10 minutes could mean life or death, however to compensate, I am led to believe that in these ambulances a highly skilled paramedic has to be on board with the knowledge/facilities to treat whilst in transit. Is this correct Ber ?

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I can't see the new system having any adverse effects on waiting lists. It may even be a positive step to ensure that people are treated in the best possible place. A&E will be for emergencies only and geared up to treat emergencies only, everything else will be treated at the Urgent Care centres, therefore, A&E waiting room will no longer be cluttered up with minor injuries and people who really ought to see their GP.
Emergency and major operations potentially requiring ICU care will be done at Blackburn, probably along with some list ops. Most waiting list ops will be done at Burnley as some of them already are. I really can't see the changes having any negative effect on general waiting lists. What I can see is some potential delay in getting a dire emergency to RBH, hence the new Helipad and, of course, the Paramedics having to stabilise people the best they can on transfer which, they already do.

The only thing we can do is suck it and see. We have no option really except, of course, at the next election....

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I have been reliably informed on this issue that the mortuary staff at the Royal Blackburn are getting more fridges to store bodies in when this happens because they are expecting 30% more deaths at Blackburn due to people not being able to get there in time from Burnley and the surrounding areas. They don't tell you that in the paper, do they?

I think it's disgusting.:mad:

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Do you not think Lilly, that this is just because they will be receiving more serious cases and, therefore, more deaths on their hands.

Think there will also be a lot more lives saved too because of the specialised response. Suppose all a matter of weighing up the odds.

There must be lots of people living on the outskirts of Blackburn that live just as far away as some Burnley residents.

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Blackburn currently provides care for the Ribble Valley and gets patients who live as far away as Slaidburn. Any extra fridges will be for the extra emergency patients who come from Burnley, many of whom will come with acute medical conditions and be admitted to acute medical wards where they will later die, as they would've done regardless of which hospital.

Blackburn will be geared up for acute emergencies and able to deal with them immediately on admission rather than being clogged up with GP cases, cuts and bruises and timewasters. There will always be people who die en route to hospital regardless of their journey time. I remember the ambulance crew bringing a young lad in dead on arrival when I was training, his injury had occurred on Bolton Rd, just down the road from BRI but he still died en route, it was devastating.

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Then hopefully this will work well. With the helicopter bringing patients and the staff being free to do the job they are there for instead of having loads of people who at the end of the day shouldn't be there to contend with they will hopefully be able to save more lives. In principle the idea of having seperate units should be a good thing IMO.

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Well, that's the theory Bernie . sounds good to me, but to echo Lettie's remark, let's suck it and see.

Might cut the waiting time down too in the urgent care unit. I myself spent 4 hours in A & E on Sunday evening whilst they saw to my broken elbow .. not grumbling like and 'customer service' was great ..:D but could help to speed up the time which is sometimes hard for young children who become tired and impatient along with not being too well....think may have a policy already anyway to attend to them first, not sure.

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Entertainment can be good too in them places :D

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Well it is no good everyone being negative about it, if it means the people most in need of tratment don't have to wait we have to hope and pray it works.

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Well, must admit Slinky was some amusing cases which kept me entertained.

The young Asian lad who was very p*ssed wandering around like a lost soul but swearing and complaining .. wasn't aggresive at all, just funny with half his lip hanging off. Eventually fell asleep prostrate outside X-ray .. the radiologist called him a minute later and he complained about not getting any sleep around here.

Then a big butch lad came in with his mate (blue light treatment) said he had been giving himself an injection (cannot say why). Stuck it in got distracted and it broke, and described to the receptionist that his arm 'just ate up the rest'. Sent his mate to ask for an ashtray :eek::eek:

Can always find a bright side of life sometimes :)

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OH MY GOD!! honest, you see some bloody sights don't ya :rolleyes:

I went to see my friend who is on level 3 today. There was a lad there. Gloating that his girlfriend had stabbed him!! Like it is a every day occurrence :rolleyes:

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It has to be a good thing that people who are seriously ill don't have to listen to drunks and druggies rabbiting on. It is bad enough being in A&E at the best of times without having to listen to other people rambling on because they are ****ed or stoned!!!

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Well, perhaps they are regulars at Peachy's :rolleyes:

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Ha ha ha nice one ..... I wonder :rolleyes: :D

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So where do i go then? Halfway between them both. Which one do i go to?

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If you are going by ambulance the crew will decide where you need to go:)

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And if you're going via helicopter, then flight control at Manny Airport will advise ;)

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I'll tell you something that they will have in both areas, though, if my wife's experience of working in the NHS is anything to go by...they'll have plenty of overpaid bureaucrats, managers and pen pushers, organising various initiatives, projects and meetings which produce plenty of meaningless reports that are of no value whatsoever to patients. This government has invested large amounts of money in the NHS, but so much of it has gone into red tape, instead of front-line services. A totally wasted opportunity, in my view.

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Just to add, I would suggest that a high percentage of these "Executives" do not even live within the catchment areas of the NHS Trusts about which they make decisions everyday. Let alone the town which the hospital serves :(

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Given your medical condition you'll go to RBH everytime.

The Ambulance Service has coloured codes that are graded to reflect the seriousness of the call (to give us some clue as to what we're going to) but the information given from the caller is not always the best and sometimes we have RED calls which should be GREEN and vice versa.

If I'm in Burnley and the call is GREEN and stays at that when patient assessed then that patient will go to BGH UCC if call ends up being an AMBER/RED then we (as in Ambulance staff) cannot downgrade it to a green (if it is a green) but have to transport to RBH ED where they'll be assessed and treated.

It is hoped that ALL ambulances will have a paramedic on them 24/7 but sometimes that is not the case.

Helicopter can only work in day-light times and if not to heavy with rain or low cloud and sorry but air control take orders from Helicopter as to where they are going and only have to divert from main take-off/landing flight paths when told to do so but it has been known for flight to be delayed if required for flight over the areas.

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The reports in the Telegraph indicate that things ran smoothly yesterday, lets hope it stays that way!!