Published: Thursday, 25th June, 2009 7:00am

Doctors back campaign to secure Edington's future

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DOCTORS from North Berwick Group Practice have backed a community council-led campaign to retain at-risk services at Edington Hospital.

Last week the Courier revealed the launch of a letter-writing offensive against proposals in East Lothian Community Care Forum"s draft "Older People"s Strategy" to redistribute provision at the cottage hospital.

The future of Edington is in doubt following publication of the strategy, which proposed reducing pressure on beds by placing greater emphasis on at-home care for the county"s elderly population.

Supporting the community council crusade is the local medical practice next door to the vulnerable health facility.

Speaking to the Courier, Dr Morgan Flynn – one of nine doctors based at the St Baldred"s Road practice – hailed the 'success' of Edington as a community facility and urged residents to throw their weight behind the campaign to save its services.

'The way the doctors see it, Edington is a great Lothian Health success,' said Dr Flynn. 'It"s well integrated with the community and our practice next door.

'As a facility it does look after the elderly but also a lot of young people, too.

Quite a lot of the minor injury casualties are children, and occasionally we do have terminal patients who are in their 20s and 30s.'

Mr Flynn also stated that, due to its small critical mass, occupancy figures at Edington can often be misleading.

'Edington is well used and the bed occupancy is pretty high but, because of its tiny size, even if we have one bed lying empty for a short time that brings down the overall figure.'

And he added: 'Both we in the practice and the town folk will struggle with successful units being shut down. Edinburgh Royal Infirmary is great but not necessarily great for elderly patients. The very large hospitals are not really geared towards the elderly.

There have been all kinds of 'slogans', he said, about people wanting to be cared for at home.

'We found that patients are very happy to be admitted to the Edington because it is close to their homes,' he added.

'In the last few years there have been great efforts to further centralise hospital units throughout the country and that cannot necessarily be in the public interest.'

He added that the building up of staff and resources at very large hospitals 'persistently drains resources from community facilities'.

In a letter to the East Lothian Courier, Mr Flynn"s colleague Dr Peter Keeling also urged readers to support North Berwick Community Council"s letter-writing campaign.

In a statement to the Courier, Gerry Power, general manager of East Lothian and Midlothian Community Health Partnerships, NHS Lothian, said: 'We are surprised that the GPs concerned have raised these issues as we had the opportunity to discuss the role of the Edington Hospital as part of the older people"s strategy at a recent meeting with them.

'We are not centralising services and can show that we have invested and continue to invest in services in East Lothian, such as the Musselburgh Primary Care Centre and new Gullane GP surgery and day centre.

'We are happy to meet with the GPs again to allay their concerns.'