Hundreds of thousands will be hit by new A&E cuts

Hammersmith hospital

19 February 2013

Hundreds of thousands of Londoners will lose their blue light emergency facilities as four A&Es are closed or downgraded.

NHS chiefs were expected to rubber stamp a controversial decision to scrap services across West London at a meeting today.

Hammersmith and Central Middlesex hospitals will lose their A&Es permanently while Charing Cross and Ealing will be left with a downgraded urgent care centres which will not accept emergency patients.

The hospitals will all lose key clinical services leaving three of the eight boroughs - and almost two million people - in North West London without a major hospital.

The pressure on already over-stretched hospitals in the area is set to increase. Chelsea and Westminster is the only A&E in the area which is not already exceeding waiting time targets.

Ealing will lose its obstetrics and maternity units and Charing Cross its hyper-acute stroke unit, while both hospitals will lose emergency surgery and intensive care units.

Central Middlesex will lose intensive care while its A&E, which has already closed, will not be reinstated. Hammersmith will become a specialist hospital, without an A&E, while intensive care will become a specialist unit.

All four hospitals will retain an urgent care centre - also known as polyclinics or walk-in care centres - to treat patients with less serious, non life threatening injuries. They will be manned by GPs and nurses.

Anne Drinkell, a matron and NHS campaigner, said: “It’s worrying that people with serious conditions no won’t necessarily be treated in a timely fashion. The pressure on other already much-pressed hospitals, such as St Mary’s in Paddington and Chelsea and Westminster, will increase greatly.”

Hundreds of campaigners were planning to protest outside the central London location of the NHS Trust’s vote this evening.

However, NHS insiders confirmed the plans were expected to go ahead as billed with no dissenters among the 18-person panel.

Dr Onkar Sahota, chair of the Save Our Hospitals Ealing campaign said: “This decision is not a surprise, but it is a travesty. The people who use these critical health services have had their opinion completely ignored.”

Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter said: “This is the biggest hospital closure programme in the history of the NHS. It will put lives at risk across West London and will give a second class health service to 2 million people.”

NHS North West London would not comment on the proposal. A final decision will be approved by NHS North West London in a vote after the meeting tonight.

In one of London’s biggest NHS land sales, trust bosses plan to dispose of most of the 30-acre Charing Cross hospital site.

They want to slash all 500 beds, leaving as just an acre - less than a football pitch - of land for buildings to treat patients.

It will mean as little as four per cent of the current site will be used as a hospital, according to page 595 of the proposal.

According to documents, the trust’s current estimate for the land sale would be up to £136 million but it is anticipated the true profit will be considerably more.

Some of the money be reinvested to build new facilities on the smaller part of the site with the addition of 60 beds.

Campaigners claim the sell-off plans were made “in secret”, with the trust burying information about the sale in dense documents.

It follows similar sell-off plans by the Whittington Hospital, where the trust wants to dispose of half of its buildings, including nurses accommodation, and cap the number of births to save £4.8million.

Ms Drinkell said: “The trust have been completely disingenuous over their plans. They trumpeted the hospital as ‘saved’, when the majority of buildings will be demolished.”

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Hammersmith And Fulham

Hundreds of thousands will be hit by new A&E cuts

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