A cancellation of a meeting of the Rutland Healthwatch Board due to coronavirus fears has been branded a 'lost opportunity' by health campaigners.

The Rutland Health and Social Care Policy Consortium had hoped to listen to and question the Chief Executive Officer of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland's Health Commissioners.

But on advice from Healthwatch England the meeting was been cancelled as a precautionary measure to limit community transmission of the coronavirus.

Consortium chairman Jennifer Fenelon said: "This cancellation was disappointing as we had hoped to talk with Mr Andy Williams about the forthcoming public consultation on the proposal to close Leicester General as an acute unit.

"The implications of this for Rutland are yet to be fully understood and the information our residents need to make an informed response to the consultation is absent.

"The public consultation originally scheduled for 31st March 2020 is now running late but that offers a good opportunity to address public concerns in Rutland offering clarity on proposals for a better joined up service:

Jennifer said of the proposed reconfiguration of acute and maternity services in Leicester and Melton involving the closure of Leicester General and the Melton Maternity Unit.

"This will have a bigger impact on Rutland people than anywhere else. Rutland people want to see detailed proposals and our letter to Mr Williams calls for detail of the scheme to be released in enough time for our community to digest what will be a huge shift of services."

Jennifer said of plans to provide community support which will help keep people out of hospital or speed their return ( including support at home and community hospital services ).

"In September 2019, 100 Rutland residents approved the national policy of bringing care closer to home (National Long Term Plan) and described how they would like that policy applied in Rutland. This was praised as a modern approach to providing care for an ageing population without adequate public transport. Official proposals have still not been forthcoming.

"Our letter to Mr Williams attached stresses from Rutland's perspective, the need to provide good community services. Among other initiatives both step up and step down care in Oakham would both keep people out of hospital or speed their return from hospital.

"Acute/maternity and community policies are interlinked and a decision to cut Leicester General without alternative local provision could be every serious for our community."

The full letter can be seen below:

Mr Andy Williams

Chief Executive of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Groups

County Hall, Glenfield, Leicester (By email )

Dear Andy

Open letter to Mr A Williams, CEO of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ( LLR) Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) about forthcoming public consultation on the reconfiguration of acute services in Leicester

We greatly appreciated that you had planned to meet Rutland people on 10th March 2020, so it was disappointing that this meeting at Healthwatch was cancelled because of coronavirus concerns. We are, therefore, writing to you instead and sharing this letter with Rutland people via the local press..

There is great interest locally in future health plans and how they will affect us.

We hope that the Health Plan for Rutland produced by Rutlanders last year proved helpful in considering the local application of national policy. We look forward to continued involvement in planning for Rutland as discussed with you when we met last December. We are, however, disappointed that a start on this much needed Rutland local plan has seen considerable delay. We urge social and healthcare colleagues to start working on a plan for the benefit of the Rutland community especially as clarity on local proposals is required before consultation starts on proposals for reconfiguration of Leicester Hospitals( UHL) including the closure of Leicester General as an acute unit ..

We are aware that the proposed reconfiguration of Leicester Hospitals (UHL) will impact adversely on a much greater proportion of the population of Rutland than elsewhere in LLR and, without clarity on other supporting strategies such as community, primary and social care, the impact is potentially critical.

Trust by local communities in the Clinical Commissioning Groups is essential for cooperation in implementing such major changes in clinical services. Sadly the two " engagement" events held in Rutland in 2018/9 failed to do that, so much ground needs to be made up.

LLR Better Care Together ( BCT) plans have been in development for 7 years and it is completely unfair that communities are suddenly confronted with huge changes affecting most acute specialties and expected to assimilate what they mean for Rutland, ask questions and then reflect on the answers before giving a considered response - all in the space of only 12 weeks.

Our community has not had a consultation opportunity through meaningful engagement and the feeling of being ignored was the key reason for inviting your staff to help frame a local plan last year.

If the revised consultation date is now delayed, it creates an opportunity to link the UHL configuration with proposals for the revision of community services. Rutlanders regard this as essential.

To provide reassurance to the people Rutland, we make the following requests :-

As the start of consultation is delayed, can time now be usefully deployed by honouring the agreement at the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee to make both the draft LLR response to the Long Term Plan and the full UHL business case public?

Could we please formally ask that as well as delivering these undertakings that, this time, people have the chance to digest the huge proposed changes to clinical services well before you come out to consult?

For the avoidance of doubt, we would be grateful for your assurance that the following will be available on the Better Care Together Website no less than 4 weeks but preferably 6 weeks prior to consultation commencing: -

1- Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Health Strategy

The local response to the national Long Term Plan (LTP) submitted to the NHS in September 2020.

2- Plans for clinical services. Details of the long term plans for services , including long term investment by health programme that arise from 1 above , It would also be helpful to illustrate how the problems of a projected £400m shortfall identified in the 2014 strategy have been resolved and whether that resolution will deal with UHL's very considerable current loan liability of the order of £90m without taking from other services.

3- UHL Pre Consultation Business Case The full Pre Consultation Business Case (PCBC) for Leicester Hospitals' reconfiguration and the supporting papers required by the Treasury Green book.

4- A Health Plan for Rutland Would you please also update Rutland people via your website on where your local plan has got to?

We fully understand the UHL PCBC is a substantial document but people in Rutland do wish to see a transparent process backed by comprehensive evidence-based proposals so that they can respond in a well-informed way. We look forward to your reassurance on these requests as a matter of urgency.

With many thanks

Jennifer Fenelon & Kathy Reynolds

On behalf of The Rutland Health and Social Care Policy Consortium