The Stop the Downgrade Campaign

Working to reinstate St. John's Hospital Livingston as an Acute Emergency Hospital

St. John's, the heartbeat of Livingston

 

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THE STOP THE DOWNGRADE CAMPAIGN STRATEGY

The primary aim of our Campaign is an immediate stop to the transfer of services to Edinburgh. It is our belief that Lothian is served best by TWO acute, emergency hospitals – St. John’s and Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary.

It is essential that services in both hospitals are made safe and sustainable. This is clinically and ethically appropriate. It will allow also the overwhelming majority of Lothian’s population to enjoy high quality emergency services close to their homes. On the St John’s site this will require a considerable enhancement of the existing catchment area from 170000 to at least 250000. Moreover, St John’s will need to provide a mix of local and regional services. The latter should include a component of emergency general surgery. This in turn will provide support for Intensive Care, Accident and Emergency and the Medical Unit.

Thanks to the dedication and hard work from our friends in the Action to Save St John’s Hospital Party (www.atssjh.org.uk), we have been successful in retaining existing services at St. John’s, facilitating millions of pounds of investment in the hospital and removing parking charges totally for the patients, visitors and staff. Through public activism we have helped create a stakeholder group whereby the public in West Lothian can influence change at St. John’s through Council representatives.

We intend to build on St John’s existing strengths while providing relief to Edinburgh’s hard-pressed Royal Infirmary. Edinburgh Royal Infirmary cannot cope with its workload and it fails continually to admit its patients promptly. Repatriation of services away from Edinburgh back to St. John’s coupled with rezoning will help it provide more equitable health care in Lothian and support Edinburgh’s failing Royal Infirmary.

As services return to St John’s it is inevitable that the infrastructure will need to be built up. In this way, we would hope to see the return of specialised laboratory services such as Pathology, and the Mortuary.


Be patient! Progress will be slow. However, what matters is the destination! We are working towards re-establishing St John’s as a fully-fledged, fully-staffed emergency general hospital which will evolve to meet the long-term needs of the rapidly expanding local population as well as making a significant contribution to the totality of health care across the whole of Lothian.

 

   
The Stop the Downgrade Campaign Aims and Objectives
 
How to complain to NHS Lothian - complaints made easy
 
Downgraded or not? here are the facts about the services which have been removed from St. John's and the supposed 'new' services added
 
What does the future hold for St. John's? What else is under threat?