Save Stroke Services – Contact Your KCC Councillor

Do you want to keep the stroke unit open in Margate’s QEQM hospital? Then write to Kent County Councillors NOW telling them exactly that. These councillors have the power to “refer back” the plans of local NHS bosses to the Secretary of State for Health —in other words ask for a rethink.

This is the first stage of our  campaign to overturn the decision. Our opportunity will come on 1 March or 22nd March, when these KCC councillors will meet. If the councillors fail to refer back the decision, SONIK will bring forward a plan for a JUDICIAL REVIEW of the plans — we are continuing to speak to top lawyers in this field.

Below is a model letter you can base your letter on and a list of the emails of the councillors involved in making the decision. Write your letter ans send it to them all or, if  know who your Kent County Councillor is, just send it to him/her.

Please email them ASAP — but at the latest before March 1. Any questions please ring me, Norman Thomas on 07989070843.

I am writing to you in the hope that you will vote to refer the Kent and Medway stroke plans back to the Secretary of State for Health. In your capacity as a voting councillor on the health overview and scrutiny committee (HOSC), you have a great responsibility to the general public to keep them safe and ensure that NHS services are not altered in a way that will do harm to any of Kent’s residents.

 Evidence from the USA shows that in areas where patients have to travel over 40 mins to get emergency health care, mortality rates increase by 21%. I implore you to refer the plan back and encourage your colleagues on the HOSC to do the same. I believe that those who put these plans to us were not presenting us the whole truth. As an elected representative on the HOSC, you have a duty to scrutinise; I hope you will look beyond the biased briefings from the NHS managers who are behind the plan.

[sign off with address and postcode if you are writing to your own councillor]