The petition of residents of the constituency of South Thanet,
Declares that the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital (QEQM) in Margate is much valued by local residents and is the only regional general hospital servicing the population of Thanet and the north and east Kent coastal communities; further that the Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups for the Kent and Medway Stroke Review have concluded that stroke services at the QEQM will be closed in favour of three Hyper-acute Stroke Units to serve Kent and Medway with Darent Valley, Maidstone and Ashford hospitals being the preferred future sites, this will leave local residents with a journey time of an hour to the nearest hospital to receive stroke care.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to reference back to the Secretary of State the conclusions of the Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups and the Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee in Kent to ensure that the outcome thus far presented is credible and soundly based and whether the maintenance of stroke services at QEQM would not be the better option for local clinical care.
And the petitioners remain, etc.—[Presented by Craig Mackinlay , Official Report, 19 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 1180.]
[P002442]
Observations from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Seema Kennedy):
The reconfiguration of services is a matter for the local NHS. It is right that these matters are addressed at a level where the local healthcare needs are best understood rather than in Whitehall. The proposed service change has recently been referred to the Secretary of State who will decide whether to refer the matter to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel for Investigation.