Communications with the Trust Part 3 or 4, we've lost count.

The Beds in the Orchard team has been having a well deserved weekend off the campaign to regroup, drink mulled wine and do a bit of Christmas shopping. We can confirm that Christmas shopping is way more tiring and stressful than campaigning for women.  However, since mulled wine has been involved, its not all bad.

So on to next week...

Our spokesperson has heard back from the Trust and we are expecting to receive a report from them tomorrow along with the notes from our meeting last Monday.

Last Thursday, Keith Dibble held a meeting of managerial and clinical staff to discuss everything that has happened so far and their report will cover their position about the closure and actions since.


So we're a bit "wait and see" now.  We'll let you know what happens tomorrow.

Communication with the Trust

A week after we launched this campaign, we were invited by the Trust to meet with them in person to discuss the closure.  We advised that we would meet once we had the responses from our Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Trust have kindly pushed through the responses to those requests, which would normally take up to 20 days.  We appreciate their swift response.

Now we have that information, we have contacted the Trust to arrange that meeting as below:

Dear Communications Team,

Now that we have the responses to our Freedom of Information requests, we would like to meet with you on behalf of the campaign to discuss the closure of The Orchard to women in more detail.

We are able to meet with you on Monday afternoon.  The earliest we could attend would be 1:30pm.

I will be attending along with ****.  I may also still bring my assistant to take notes on my behalf, but I can't confirm this as yet as she may be required to minute another meeting at work.

Please can you advise whether Monday afternoon would also be convenient for you and who will be attending the meeting on your behalf.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Communications with Lancashire Care Trust,

My name is Philippa and I'm the spokesperson for the Beds in the Orchard campaign.  I believe I'm referred to by some of our other campaigners as one of the "Suited and Booted".  My role has been to liaise with the Trust, the press and other groups interested in supporting us.

This week I've had two communications from the Trust.

Firstly, I have had confirmation that our FOI requests are being collated and should be with us at the start of next week.  The plan is that I will then meet with the trust along with two other campaigners.  I will publish the details when I have them.

The second communication is one from Keith Dibble, the Interim Deputy Network Director for Inpatient CBU in response to a letter of complaint.

The contents of that letter are broadly along the same lines as their communications with our MPs and in his radio interview at the start of November where the specific issues are not addressed, however this is to be expected.  I will not be transcribing the letter onto the blog as it does not contain any new information and we have already made our position clear in previous posts as to why we are unsatisfied with the response so far.

I am more than happy to provide a scanned electronic copy of the letter to anyone who wishes to see it in full.

In the interim period between my original email to the Trust, my colleague and I have been taking advice in a number of areas with regards to this change and how it was made, however we have decided to suspend taking forward these more formal routes of action until after the meeting with the Trust has taken place.

After discussion with campaigners, however, we will be pressing ahead with organising direct action, and promoting the petition, particularly now that we have the backing of LUSU.

The information the campaign was given in regards to the original intentions of the Trust came from their management level.  I remain inclined to believe the words of those who have much to loose and little to gain from sharing that information, rather than generalised statements from an organisation that is unwilling to address specific issues.

I will report back via the blog after our meeting has taken place.

Philippa