Unions and local campaigners responded with fury yesterday after the Coalition’s ‘special administrator’ Matthew Kershaw called for the winding up of the South London Healthcare NHS trust.
Kershaw said the trust, which runs three hospitals in the capital, was on the verge of ‘bankruptcy’ and should be broken up, and other organisations (privateers) invited to take over the management and delivery of its services.
Kershaw recommends the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich merges with Lewisham Healthcare NHS trust, and the Princess Royal University hospital in Farnborough, Bromley, merges with King’s College hospital NHS foundation trust.
The report stated: ‘In order to deliver this transformation programme, South London Healthcare NHS trust should be dissolved and other organisations should take over the management and delivery of the NHS services it currently provides.’
Kershaw claimed the south London trust remained the ‘biggest financial problem’ across the NHS.
According to the report, the trust’s hospitals must make £74.9m of ‘efficiency savings’ over the next three years.
Kershaw said: ‘I have said consistently that the status quo is not an option, and I believe these final, refined recommendations are the right ones, although I appreciate that some people will find them difficult to accept.
The report has been presented to health secretary Hunt, who has 20 working days to make a decision, by 1 February.
Margaret Bartlett from the Lewisham Hospital Defence Campaign, condemned the report, telling News Line: ‘I’m a patient at Lewisham Hospital, with cancer.
‘You get used to going to a hospital. You get used to the nurses and the doctors, you get to know them and you trust them. You can’t get all that together and just plonk it somewhere else.
‘Doctors treat the patients as individuals and that is how they are seen. The patients see the nurses as their individual nurse.
‘It should stay as a hospital. It was built to serve the people of Lewisham. We’re not just talking about one or two, it’s thousands of people.
‘Closure should be fought by everybody, nurses, patients, everybody in the community.
‘They are saying it’s bankrupt. Well, I’d like to know where the information comes from. They haven’t shown us the figures. They are just saying it’s got to close. Well we’re saying it’s got to stay open!
‘It’s got all the services. Why close it? We should keep our nice hospitals, not get rid of them. Lewisham is a good hospital. We had an original march, we can get the crowds together. I think we need another and I hope we have success with it.
‘I think at the end of the day it will come to occupying. It’s been done before and it will happen again.’
Conroy Lawrence, Lewisham Hospital Unison Assistant Branch Secretary, told News Line: ‘We are determined to fight this all the way. We don’t accept the closure of this hospital.
‘Closure of Lewisham would be a disaster. As far as the trade unions are concerned, we must retain our A&E at Lewisham.
‘We are concerned for our community’s welfare and our members’ jobs. I actually live in Lewisham and have for most of my life. Right from the start this so-called consultation has been all geared towards privatisation. There is a day of action scheduled for 26th January. We had 20,000 at the last demonstration and we expect to triple that.’
