Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will assess the effect on areas of health deprivation in Warrington of the siting of any new hospital south of the Manchester Ship Canal.

Decisions regarding the strategic planning of care are the responsibility of individual clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). Each CCG has a duty under section 14T of the National Health Service Act 2006 to have regard to the need to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access health services, and reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services. This applies to decisions about the location of services.

While the local health economy has announced its long term intention to build a new hospital, no specific site, timescales or financial arrangements have yet been confirmed.

Any proposals for a new site would be subject to wide scale public engagement giving local people the opportunity to feed in their ideas and comments.