Public invited to comment on plans to close hospital

Health chiefs are planning to shut South Moor Hospital, in Stanley, and want to hear the views of patients.

The hospital, which is nearly 100 years old, also has outpatients and foot clinics and limited x-ray facilities.

The outpatient facilities are, in any case, to move to the Stanley Health Centre, which is to open in 2008.

An inpatient ward is temporarily closed due to staffing shortages. It is used to accommodate patients who had an operation or illness in an acute hospital and were awaiting a move to a nursing or residential care home.

County Durham and Darlington Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, and Derwentside Primary Care Trust (PCT), which commissions the services, have begun a 13-week consultation.

Hospitals' trust chief executive John Saxby said: "The facilities at South Moor Hospital were not designed to deliver 21st Century healthcare.

"It would cost half a million pounds to make the improvements needed to keep using the hospital, and we feel that this is simply not an efficient use of scarce NHS resources."

People have until August 1 to comment on the proposals.

Details of the consultation has been placed on the trust website, www.cddah.nhs.uk

Leaflets with details have also been posted to local libraries and GP surgeries and are available at the hospital.

Wynn Griffiths, chief executive of the PCT, said: "We agree that South Moor Hospital is no longer fit to provide modern local services.

"The PCT has worked closely with local people and the acute hospitals trust to plan the new Stanley Health Centre, which will in a couple of years' time provide excellent modern facilities for the Stanley area.

"We are sure that people in and around Stanley will find that services in the future are more accessible and are provided in much-improved environments."

Two public meetings will be held at the Lamplight Arts Centre, in Stanley, on June 19, from 2pm to 4pm and 6pm to 8pm.