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Babergh District Council has formally invited the Chief Executive of the Suffolk West Primary Care Trust (PCT) to attend the meeting of its Overview & Scrutiny (Community Services) Committee on 4th October. The council has requested that the PCT present their proposals for health care and patient services, particularly in relation to Sudbury and Great Cornard.
Babergh acknowledges that the PCT is carrying out a formal public consultation exercise. However, at a meeting on 26th July, Babergh’s 43 councillors voiced ‘grave concern’ at the PCT’s proposals to withdraw all current patient services from Sudbury’s existing hospitals, and to exclude in-patient bed provision from the proposed new Health and Social Care Centre, which is due to open in 2007.
The communities of Sudbury and Great Cornard contain some of the most deprived wards in rural Suffolk which leaves Babergh deeply concerned about the knock-on effects for these communities, should the Suffolk West PCT withdraw patient services from Sudbury.
“Sudbury is an isolated market town, poorly served by public transport and with significant health inequalities” said Mike Hammond, Corporate Director at Babergh District Council. “We must ensure that people living in the area have access to health care and patient services in the future”, he added.
Following the threat of closure of Sudbury’s Walnuttree Hospital last year, the Strategic Health Authority gave its assurance that services currently provided at the Walnuttree Hospital site would continue to be delivered until the new health facilities were opened in 2007.
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