Ayr Carrick and Cumnock MP questions Health Board over Safety

Ayr Carrick and Cumnock MP Sandra Osborne has written to the Chair of Ayrshire and Arran Health Board, Professor Bill Stevely,  following the Scrutiny Panel’s rejection of the Health Board’s proposals for centralising Accident and Emergency services at Crosshouse.

She said:
“The Scrutiny Panel has explicitly stated that the Health Board did not make a convincing case that existing Accident and Emergency services are unsafe or unsustainable. But this was central to the Health Board’s case and it was stated time and time again at public meetings and in the consultation documents. It has been repeated since in the revised options.

It is untenable for either the Health Board or clinicians to implement decisions they believe to be unsafe and which may put people’s lives in danger. Either they set out to frighten the public into accepting their case for closure, or they felt so strongly that Accident and Emergency could not continue to operate safely from the two sites that they were prepared to fly in the face of public opinion.

This is a very important matter – safety is not an issue which can be sacrificed for the sake of political expediency and we need to know the true position.

I have asked Professor Stevely to state explicitly if he believes Accident and Emergency services at Ayr are safe now and if they will continue to be safe in the future, and if so, why we have been put through all of this unnecessary public concern.”