Theresa May has today raised her concerns about how much local people in the Maidenhead area are being consulted by Berkshire East Primary Care Trust and Berkshire Healthcare Trust about plans to make significant changes to local healthcare services.
Theresa says: “The Right Care, Right Place consultation has been running since January and proposes to make big changes to health services in Maidenhead. Despite repeated assurances that there could be a Minor Injuries Unit at St Marks Hospital, the current plans rule out this option. In addition the consultation raises the prospect of big changes to Charles ward at St Marks, which currently provides an invaluable service to elderly people with mental illnesses.”
“Only 70,000 consultation booklets and questionnaires were send out to the public – this is a mere 18 per cent of the population serviced by Berkshire East PCT. The population of Maidenhead alone is 58,848! How can the Trust say it is giving people a real choice over healthcare and then ignore 82 per cent of us?”
“Despite the consultation significantly improving health services in Bracknell and Slough, yet again, Maidenhead is being ignored. Thank goodness for the campaign run by the Maidenhead Advertiser – without that far fewer people would have been able to have their say on the plans.”
