Hospital Services (West London)
Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Stephen Pound(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. I enjoyed my visit to Ealing hospital with Ken Livingstone in the run-up to the London elections, although I am not sure whether my support did Ken’s campaign much good.
Andrew Gwynne
Yes, as my hon. Friend confirms, we did win the GLA seat.
Councillor Carlebach told the BBC in April:
“We have some serious concerns at closing that many A and Es in such a large region.”
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) has expressed similar concerns.
The scale of the problem is easily grasped when one considers that NHS North West London serves a population of 1.9 million people in eight boroughs: Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Does the Minister agree with the remarks made by his colleague on Hammersmith and Fulham council?
The chief executive of NHS North West London, Anne Rainsberry, has been clear on what is driving the decisions. She told the BBC in February:
“The financial challenges in London are pretty much unprecedented.”
The local Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts has said that there will be a £332 million gap to plug by 2014-15 if no changes are made.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, and the Labour party, are not opposed to change. He said a few weeks ago that there was
“nothing wrong with economies of scale if you can join forces and do something cheaper that provides more resources,”
and I associate myself with those remarks. The chief executive of the King’s Fund agrees that
“London’s NHS is in urgent need of change,”
but, he goes on to say,
“the risk is no-one will be in the driving seat”.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) also warned about the lack of leadership and the timing of the changes when she said:
“The question is how do we get there from here at a time of chaotic reorganisation in the health service, when planning is falling apart, when north-west London hospitals alone have to save over £120m between now and 2014.”
I am afraid that what we are seeing goes much further than, and is in direct contradiction to, the Prime Minister and Health Secretary’s general election promise to halt the closures of hospitals, A and E units and maternity departments. What happened between the general election and now that caused both those right hon. Gentlemen to change their position? Why does the Minister think that there is such widespread concern about the lack of leadership in the health service in London, at a time when the NHS is being put through an unnecessary upheaval?
It is obvious from what the Government have had to say to date that Ministers are hiding behind their new localism and are happy to blame the soon-to-be-abolished PCTs for the forthcoming closures. We all know what happened between the general election and now: the unpopular and, frankly, unnecessary Health and Social Care Bill—the biggest threat to the NHS in its long history—was introduced. It was a disastrous decision on the part of the Government to spend £3 billion on an unnecessary top-down reorganisation that has led to the loss of financial grip on the NHS.
In the case of west London, we are seeing another broken promise on the part of the Prime Minister, who spent millions during the general election putting up posters throughout the country reassuring the British electorate that, under the Conservatives, there would be a moratorium on hospital and A and E closures.
Does the Minister think that the proposals in the “Shaping a healthier future” document will save money in the long term? If all the closures go ahead, would that not leave Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust with just St Mary’s hospital as a single site, and pose huge financial and practical problems for the expansion of its services to cope with the extended case load?
The Opposition warned Ministers repeatedly during the Bill’s passage that it would lead to the break-up of the NHS, and the “Shaping a healthier future” proposals seem to be a missed opportunity to improve care by reducing duplication where it occurs and ensuring that hospitals work together for the benefit of patient care.