Members of Defend Dorset NHS will attend a meeting at the House of Commons

Members of Defend Dorset NHS campaign group will attend a meeting in the House of Commons tomorrow. 

The campaign group are fighting Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) proposed reforms to NHS services in Dorset.

Earlier this week it was announced the group had lost their legal battle when the case was presented to the High Court for judicial review. 

Now, Defend Dorset NHS members, Giovanna Lewis, Deb Monkhouse and Chris Bradley will join campaign groups from Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire, Devon, Northumbria, Oxfordshire and Dewsbury to lobby MPs.

They will be calling for better scrutiny and review processes to stop cuts and major changes to NHS services. 

Campaigners will tell MPs there is an "urgent need to address serious flaws" when scrutiny committees refer proposals to the Secretary of State for Health and the Independent Reconfiguration Panel.

The Dorset group is also calling for proposals for a major healthcare shake-up in the county to be referred for Independent Review.

Under the NHS Clinical Services Review, Poole Hospital will lose its accident and emergency and maternity departments, with more beds and staff created at Royal Bournemouth Hospital.

Beds will also be cut at community hospitals on Portland and in Wareham, with greater use of ‘care-at-home’.

A statement put out on the Defend Dorset NHS Facebook page said: "We are lobbying Dorset Health Scrutiny Committee to refer Dorset CCG's plans for Independent Review.

"Dorset CCG plan to downgrade Poole A&E, close Poole maternity, close community hospitals and beds at Wareham, Portland, Ferndown, Westhaven in Weymouth and Alderney in Poole and close 245 acute hospital beds.

"We are particularly concerned about the additional clinical risk that the CCG calculate will be faced by at least 400 people per year who currently arrive at Poole by ambulance, but who will have to travel further to access A&E and maternity services elsewhere."