W&PBC were completely right to ask for Dorset CCG's Plans to be looked at again.

They have carried out their duty to protect the interests of the people they represent. The CCG plans do not make sense.

Community beds play a vital role in taking away some of the pressure for major hospitals. Patients can be moved there and free up beds for those needing operations and emergency care. We already see operations cancelled because there are not enough beds.

Beds at Portland and Ferndown have been closed and Wareham's beds will go at the end of October.

More will follow.

Dorset will also lose 245 major hospital beds under CCG plans – and we will end up with around 800 beds less than we are forecast to need.

Care Closer to Home, heralded as the solution, is not being resourced properly and leaving us short changed – even the BMA agree.District nurses are struggling to cope.

On emergency services, moving Poole's A+E and Specialist Maternity Unit to Bournemouth will mean many people will have to travel further to get emergency care.

Better specialisms are a good idea, but not if you can't get to them soon enough and are at risk of dying in an ambulance.

The CCG claimed that their plans would save 60 lives, but could provide no evidence of this in court.

Defend Dorset have provided evidence to the Health Scrutiny Committee that 183 people per year would be at risk of dying if they have longer journeys to Bournemouth, the most congested area in the county.

It really isn't rocket science – but paying £3m to a firm of consultants to come up with a plan to make us believe things are improving is just scandalous.

GIOVANNA ELIZABETH LEWIS

Haylands, Portland

  • Last week, Dorset County Council's health scrutiny committee voted to refer the Dorset CCG's clinical services review to the Secretary of State for independent review - Editor