News story

5th August 2005

Hospital Staff Forbidden to Support "Save Frenchay" Campaign At Work

A row has broken out at North Bristol NHS Trust after staff were told that they must not show any support for the Save Frenchay Hospital campaign when at work.

An e-mail from chief executive Sonia Mills instructed employees to take down campaign posters from Trust premises and to stop distributing leaflets, because such actions were "inappropriate" given the Trust's support of proposals to downgrade Frenchay.  Ms Mills then listed eight reasons why the Southmead site was chosen over Frenchay to become the region's acute hospital.

The e-mail comes after a petition signed by more than 30,000 people was sent to Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt, supporting Northavon MP Steve Webb's call for her to recommend that an Independent Reconfiguration Panel review the decision to downgrade Frenchay.

Commenting, Steve Webb said:

"I would have thought that Sonia Mills would have better things to do with her time than spend it squashing dissent.

"If she believes that her decisions to downgrade Frenchay are robust, she shouldn't mind a bit of debate on the issue."