Vascular Services (Warrington)

David Mowat Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

The Minister is describing in some detail the process by which the nine centres that previously existed are to be reduced to two, and we can, perhaps, accept the logic of that. This is a piecemeal decision for one type of service, however. If every centralisation decision is taken in a piecemeal way, Warrington and Halton might well lose every single time. When decisions on centralisation are made, should there not be some kind of strategy for deciding what will end up where, so that every decision is not made on a piecemeal basis?

[Mr Burns]

If my hon. Friend means by “piecemeal” that the decision is dealing only with a certain part of the country, then that is indeed the case. However, the review was carried out in the context of a wider geographical area in and around Merseyside, and in that respect it is achieving its aim of finding the most relevant service for the local communities. That is why the recommendation was to have two arterial centres located there.

The hon. Member for Warrington North raised the issue of population, as she believes, I think, that there should be a third centre. The following point is based on advice from both the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland and the local clinical advisory group. The population in the area under discussion in respect of this decision on services is 1.2 million, whereas the figures that would be required to have a third centre are 1.4 million for the vascular networks and 1.6 million for abdominal aortic aneurysm screening programmes. Therefore, the population currently under discussion is too small to warrant an extra centre. I hope she will accept that.