I am delighted that Scarborough and the Friarage hospital in Northallerton will benefit from a new community services formula and extra money for being unavoidably small hospitals following my campaign with three fellow Yorkshire MPs.
Health Minister, Chris Skidmore MP, has written to me after I raised the matter in the House and then followed it up with the Department of Health, to inform me that the independent Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation (ACRA) has recently endorsed a new formula which would better recognise the needs in some rural, coastal and remote areas that tend to have much older populations and higher needs for some community services. As a result NHS Scarborough and Ryedale CCG, which covers Scarborough hospital and South Tees CCG, which include the Friarage, will allocate in 2019/2020 an extra £1.5m (0.92 percent) through the new community services formula and will also award a further £2.9 million(1.7 percent) as both hospitals qualify for extra provision as unavoidably small hospitals in remote areas.
This is very welcome news. Many of my constituents rely on these two hospitals for their medical care needs. Without them they would have to travel to York as their nearest hospital and this is simply not practical, particularly if they are in pain. I have been working with my parliamentary colleagues, Robert Goodwill MP (Scarborough and Whitby), Rishi Sunak MP (Richmond) and Greg Knight MP (East Yorkshire) to secure extra funding to meet the challenges faced by these hospitals. Whilst we appreciate resources are tight, there does need to be a full range of services available for people living in rural areas or small towns. We want to make sure that these are maintained and that there is no further diminution in healthcare provision in these two important hospitals.
