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An appeal against the High Court's ruling to uphold NHS plans to close several stroke units in Kent has been launched.
Medway Council today launched its appeal against the decision handed down by a judge in February to the Court of Appeal – the second highest court in the country.
Council leader Alan Jarrett has questioned the court's judgement for failing to consider inequality when making its decision over the NHS proposals.
Health bosses wish to close three stroke centres across Kent – at Medway Maritime Hospital, the QEQM in Margate and at Pembury Hospital – to create three hyper acute stroke units (HASUs).
These would be located at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford and Maidstone Hospital.
But opponents say the changes will bring harm to thousands of stroke patients particularly in more deprived areas such as Thanet and Medway.
Cllr Jarrett says the council, which was listed as an interested party in the failed judicial review bid last month, has full right of appeal and will be taking the matter further.
He said: "I can announce that we have launched an appeal against the High Court’s decision to find that the Joint Committee of CCGs had acted lawfully.
“We believe that the Joint CCG committee and the High Court failed to consider inequality appropriately when making their decision. Medway has a number of deprived areas and these communities tend to have higher stroke admission rates which is why we need to have excellent medical facilities here.
“Medway Council is currently putting in place comprehensive and ambitious plans to transform the area and long-term investment is needed to address the causes of health inequality here in Medway.
“We have voiced our concerns about the impact of the location of the stroke units numerous times and we will continue to do so until our voice is heard.
“We are committed to ensuring our residents have access to high quality health services."
It comes as health chiefs revealed changes to stroke services in the county as the NHS continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
Critical care beds have tripled across Kent in a bid to ensure people with the virus can get vital treatment which include changes to the way stroke patients are looked after.
From this week, Kent and Canterbury Hospital will being taking on patients under East Kent Hospitals and the rehabilitation inpatients at Maidstone Hospital will move to the KIMS private hospital near Maidstone.
The changes are a direct response to the coronavirus and are not early changes under the NHS stroke review, which is due to come into effect in autumn 2022.
In a statement responding to the appeal, the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Partnership called on the court to throw out the requests for the case to be heard.
It said: "The Judicial Review found entirely in favour of the NHS on all eight of the grounds bought by the claimants.
"The judge considered thousands of pages of evidence in forming her ruling. Furthermore, any delay to the work to implement three new hyper acute stroke units will lead to even further avoidable death and disability.
"It is imperative that the NHS can progress implementation as quickly as possible to improve stroke services for everyone in Kent and Medway."
Two appeals were launched by campaigners from Thanet against the NHS stroke unit plans which were heard at the High Court in London in December.
Save Our NHS in Kent (Sonik) and the Thanet Stroke Campaign had brought separate judicial review cases to the courts.
Carly Jeffrey of Sonik said: "We are in full support of Medway Council's decision to appeal, and we would like to offer our help to Alan Jarrett and the other councillors behind this. We did a lot of analysis on the failure of the NHS decision-makers to take health inequalities adequately into account, and we are happy to share our work with their legal team if it will help."
"Sonik do not agree that three HASUs are enough to cover all of Kent and Medway, and the numbers bear that out. There should be four at the very least. The selected locations also don't make sense, as Dartford is a short journey from Hyper Acute Stroke Units in Essex and Southeast London.
"It should also be noted that the plans cannot proceed until the Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock gives them the go ahead, due to the referral back made by Medway Council last year. Mr Hancock has had the papers on his desk for a few months now. Given the coronavirus outbreak, it is unlikely that he will be giving his decision for quite some time.
"We did a lot of analysis on the failure of the NHS decision-makers to take health inequalities adequately into account"
"We hope that the plans will be halted and redrawn with the health of deprived communities such as Thanet and Medway in mind."
Health bosses say there is overwhelming evidence to show the current under-performance of stroke services in Kent and Medway means more people are dying than would be expected, and people are being left with avoidable disability.
They argue that the evidence shows the timescales for reaching and receiving treatment at the new units are both safe and achievable, and that the option approved for HASUs is the one that will best deliver the necessary improvements.
But the campaigners said the evidence had not been consulted on properly with the public and was based on flawed results.
If the case papers are approved by the Court of Appeal, a full hearing could be granted in at least four months time. But the coronavirus lockdown is expected to extend proceedings.
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