The devastating closures of the accident and emergency departments at Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex Hospital are set to take place on 10th September, it has been announced.
If they are allowed to go ahead, these two closures will soon afterwards be followed by the closures of two other local North West London A&Es, at Ealing Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital.
All four hospitals are threatened with having their Maternity Units shut down as well, while the plan is also for the eventual demolition of Charing Cross and Ealing Hospitals.
The Board of Imperial College NHS Trust, meeting at Hammersmith Hospital’s W12 conference centre on Wednesday 28th May, announced the simultaneous closures of the Accident and Emergency departments at Central Middlesex and Hammersmith Hospitals and set the date for 10th September.
The two A&Es are to be ‘downgraded’ on the same day in September and the cynicism of the thinking behind this simultaneous closure plan was revealed this week.
<br /
In Imperial College Healthcare Trust’s board papers, it is stated that the two emergency departments should close on the same day ‘to avoid the potential impact of one closing and those patients being diverted to the remaining one as it prepares to close’.
This cynical joint closure of Central Mid and Hammersmith A&E departments was decided the very week after A&E attendances nationwide hit a new record high.
This Tuesday it was revealed that 296,667 people attended A&E departments in the week ending May 25.
This made the week ending May 25, the week before the Hammersmith and Central Mid A&E joint closure decision was made, the busiest week for A&E departments ever, with tens of thousands of patients having to wait more than four hours for treatment.
The Labour Party warned that these record numbers indicate that the NHS is facing a summer A&E crisis.
In the same week last year, the total attending A&E departments was 273,477.
Official NHS figures show that of the 296,667 who attended A&E in England in the week ending May 25, 2014, 77,745 were admitted to a hospital ward, which is also a new record.
The official NHS target is that patients should be assessed, treated or discharged in casualty departments within four hours.
But in that week, 24,503 people had to wait longer than four hours.
This is also a record.
Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said the statistics underlined the need for ‘significant action’.
Jamie Reed, a Labour health spokesman, said: ‘A&Es are facing the worst year in a decade – there’s now a summer crisis that’s worse than the winter one.’
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced in October last year that the emergency departments at Hammersmith Hospital and Central Middlesex Hospital would be downgraded to urgent care centres, following a recommendation from the so-called ‘independent reconfiguration panel’ that this should be done ‘as soon as practicable’.
When making its announcement of the joint closures of Hammersmith and Central Middlesex A&Es, the Imperial College Healthcare Trust claimed that the A&E at St Mary’s will only receive an extra 25 ambulances and 15 extra patients a day, while the impact on Charing Cross Hospital is also ‘unlikely to be significant’, according to the trust.
However, this was refuted on Tuesday, 10 June by the Labour MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, Andy Slaughter, who issued a press release declaring: ‘Tory betrayal on Charing Cross Hospital goes straight to the top!’
Slaughter said: ‘The Conservative Party have serious and grave questions to answer over their reckless and irresponsible plans to shake-up West London’s A&E departments.
‘Jeremy Hunt’s behaviour over Charing Cross and Hammersmith Hospitals has been absolutely disgraceful.
‘I would like to know why he is afraid to discuss the closure of Hammersmith A&E.
‘Is it because he knows that this closure will be a serious blow to local residents who now face longer journey times to hospitals like St Mary’s, which is already at maximum capacity?
‘He explicitly promised that this would not be the case.
‘He repeats the lie that the new Charing Cross will have a full A&E service.
‘He knows full well that Charing Cross’s A&E department is set to be replaced by a Minor Injuries Unit with no “blue light” service and no Intensive Care Unit.
‘At least 400 acute beds will be lost. The UK’s leading stroke unit will go.
‘I raised this with him earlier today in the Commons but he had no substantive response other than to simply parrot the discredited lines that the local Conservative Party trot out in Hammersmith & Fulham.
‘David Cameron also has to answer serious questions as well.
‘He came to Hammersmith in the week before the local elections and made several contentious or outright misleading statements about local A&E services.
‘The extent of the Tory Party’s complete betrayal of West London goes right to the top.
‘I raised all this in a letter to him last month but he has yet to respond.
‘So the three questions that Jeremy Hunt must answer to justify his attack on me (are):
‘1) Why is he reluctant to debate the future of Hammersmith Hospital?
‘2) Why did David Cameron come to Hammersmith and mislead the public over Charing Cross?
‘3) Does he think a local hospital with GP-led services can be passed off as a full A&E emergency department?’
– Andy Slaughter MP.
The four A&E and Maternity closures in North West London are central to the Tory coalition regime’s nationwide A&E and Maternity closure programme.
While enormous opposition to the plan has been manifested, with tens of thousands of local residents marching and signing petitions, the trade unions have so far done absolutely nothing to stop the closures.
This must change.
The unions have the power and the responsibility to defend the NHS and defeat the Tory-led government’s NHS privatisation and hospital closure programme.
Trade unions must occupy to keep hospitals open and demand that the TUC call a general strike to bring down the coalition.
The TUC Congress is taking place in Liverpool, starting on 7th September, three days before the planned closures of the two A&Es.
The Young Socialists are calling on all workers, trade unionists and trade union branches to support their three-week March for Jobs, starting in London on 19th August and arriving in Liverpool on 7th September.
The demands of the march are that the TUC calls a General Strike to Defend the NHS, Smash Zero Hours Contracts, Smash £9,000 Tuition Fees and Bring the Tory Coalition down.
This is the way to defeat the closure of the four North West London A&Es.
