Wednesday May 16 | 2018
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Times OF TONBRIDGE
INSIDE FLOWER POWER
PHOTO: Scott Wishart
Supercar show raises money for Poppy Appeal Page 2
BESPOKE SERVICE
A21 cycle path opens from town to hospital Page 3
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE: Dame Kelly Holmes leads the Tonbridge parkrun on Saturday to launch a national initiative celebrating the 70th birthday of the NHS. See page 2
A&E worry as Cottage Hospital closes its out-of-hours surgery By Andy Tong andy@timesoftonbridge.co.uk THERE will be no out-of-hours doctors at Tonbridge Cottage Hospital from the end of this month as part of plans to focus on fewer medical locations. Local residents will have to visit Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury until government plans to extend hours at GP surgeries come into force on October 1. Until now the clinic on Vauxhall Lane has offered appointments via NHS 111 when surgeries were closed. The service is offered from 6.30pm to 8am every weekday except Tuesdays, with a 24-hour service at the weekend. The provision at Sevenoaks Community Hospital will also cease on May 31.
Pembury and Maidstone Hospitals will instead provide new ‘urgent treatment centres’ [UTCs], which will allow patients to see GPs and nurses who do not need to go to Accident & Emergency. However, the UTCs will not be ‘fully
‘The alternative was to wait for hours in A&E, which is not ideal if it’s your children’ open’ until April next year, and it is feared that the loss of the Cottage Hospital provision will pile more pressure on the two embattled A&E units. They were severely stretched over the winter months, with Pembury cancelling non-urgent surgery for two months
or moveing operations to Maidstone. Such was the demand placed on A&E that a spillover arrangement was set up to use a recovery unit which is usually reserved for patients after they have undergone surgery. Last year, 18,048 out-of-hours GP-led appointments were offered in west Kent. Of those, Tonbridge Cottage Hospital saw more than 8,000 people. There will still be a home-visiting service to help housebound patients. The NHS West Kent Clinical Commissioning Group [CCG] announced their decision by saying: “The changes to the service are part of plans to improve urgent and local care – care provided in people’s communities rather than in a main hospital.” From October some surgeries across
the region will be open until 8pm on Monday to Friday and also offer some weekend appointments. Mother of two Helena Perkin recently used the Cottage Hospital for an evening consultation when her 10-year-old son was feeling unwell. She described the decision to end the service as ‘hugely detrimental to the community’. Mrs Perkin, who lives in High Brooms, said: “It was incredibly useful. They were very efficient in terms of allocating me an out-of-hours slot and administered the medication for my son. “The alternative would have been to wait for hours in A&E, which is not ideal if it’s your children.”
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GREEN WITH ENVY
Hildenborough foodies love Vegetarian Week Page 64
RISE AND SHINE
Tonbridge Grammar dazzle at acrobatic nationals Page 78