A&E department closures announced
Hammersmith, Charing Cross, Central Middlesex and Ealing hospital A&E Departments set to close. ‘U-Turn’ shown to be false. No A&E Departments for the boroughs of Hammersmith, Ealing and Brent. Petition with 100,000 signatures ignored. Changes will take 3-5 years to implement.
The hope that the Charing Cross A&E department was to be saved has been overturned after the official meeting was held on February 19. This comes after speculation that the A&E department was going to remain open as a smaller A&E.
Andy Slaughter, Hammersmith and Fulham Labour MP, announced that the A&E department of Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Central Middlesex and Ealing hospitals would be closed. He stated that this decision would mean that “Charing Cross Hospital will be demolished and most of the site sold for private development”.
He also added that the “NHS use of the sitwill be 3% of current levels. All 500 beds at Charing Cross will go and all acute services will be lost”.
This means that all ‘blue light’ emergencieswill be diverted to other hospitals and that there will be no A&E department in the London boroughs of Hammersmith, Ealing and Brent.
The replacement to the closure of the A&E department will be ‘Urgent Care Centres’ (UCC) at each of the hospitals. They are centres that have to be ‘staffed by at least one GP at all times’ and are ‘able to treat minor injuries (including minor fractures)’
The Save Our Hospitals campaign claims that these closures will affect 2 million west London residents and that petitions with over 100,00 signatures opposing the closures have been ignored.
In a letter to Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle, Carlo Nero, the chair of the Save Our Hospital – Hammersmith and Charing Cross campaignsaid: ‘We now feel deeply betrayed by our elected representatives who have meekly given in to NHS bosses at the eleventh hour without any prior consultation with the community whatsoever.’
In the full press release by North West London NHS, it states that ‘These proposals will now take 3-5 years to implement, ensuring that improvements in out of hospital care are in place before major changes to hospital services are then implemented’. This would mean that current medical students might not be affected by these changes.
The Shaping a Healthier Future programme stated that it would be ‘Investing over £190m more in out-of-hospital care to improve community fcilities and the care provided by GPs and others. Most of these improvements will be put in place before any major changes to local hospitals are made’.
Jeff Zitron, Chair of the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts (JCPCT), said: “This is an important decision for the NHS in NW London. I am delighted that, after thorough and careful examination, we are able to fully recommend what clinicians feel will deliver the best possible care for local people for years to come. We have not taken this decision lightly, and have been very careful to consider the many thousands of responses we received during our extensive consultation last summer. I am confident that this is the best decision for the people of North West London and for the NHS.”
A statement released by Imperial College said that: ‘Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Imperial College London welcome the decision to move forward with the plans to reconfigure health services in North West London.’
It also mentioned that ‘Throughout this process, we have also maintained the importance of the Academic Health Science Centre’s mission to link up education, research and front line healthcare. Our support for these proposals has therefore been conditional on the NHS’s commitment to fund any relocation of our existing medical school facilities.’
