In July, Tory Health Minister Andrew Lansley MP hand-picked a ‘special administrator’ to take over South London Healthcare Trust. The administrator, Matthew Kershaw, completed a draft report that recommended that Lewisham Hospital close their A&E. And their children’s wards, critical care, emergency and complex surgery units, and perhaps the maternity services. He then proposed selling off Lewisham Hospital’s empty buildings for £17million, only £5million less than this year’s A&E refurb. (see explanation of the report). Lewisham Hospital is not part of South London Healthcare, where the adminstrator was appointed.
Matthew Kershaw believes closing Lewisham A&E will force patients through the doors of the heavily indebted Queen Elizabeth Hospital, thus increasing its income. However, this trick has already been performed once, when Queen Mary’s Sidcup A&E was closed 2 years ago, and currently up to 1 in 5 patients wait over 4 hours for treatment in Queen Elizabeth A&E. It will overwhelm the indebted Queen Elizabeth Hospital, at a time when the administrator also recommends it makes £100million of further cuts.
We urged people to fill in the consultation forms on line.
We preserve this page and other sections of the TSA report process as a historical record of a ‘consultation process’ that Lewisham people and clinicians engaged with – with passion, anger and intelligence. They were ignored.
Please try to take the time to complete the consultation document independently!
E-mail tsaconsultation@nhs.net with your opinions
Or write to:
Freepost Plus RSHB-CGKA-RYHK
TSA Consultation
Ipsos MORI Research Services
Elmgrove Road
Harrow HA1 2OG
But if you support our campaign, want to respond and you don’t have time to learn jargon or complete the form fully, then follow this guide. This will help you to defend Lewisham’s A&E and maternity services.
- Click here. Then open the ‘online response form’
- If you don’t understand questions 1-6, just click ‘strongly disagree’ or ‘next’. (Q1 – Q3 relate to ‘financial efficiency’. Q4 – Q6 relate to Queen Mary’s Sidcup becoming a ‘health campus’)
- Answer ‘strongly disagree’ to question 7 if you can – it relates to selling off hospital buildings. They want to sell 60% of Lewisham Hospital’s buildings. Once they are gone, there is no turning back.
- If you don’t understand questions 8 to 12, click ‘strongly disagree or ‘next’. (Q8 – Q12 relate to PFI and community care. It is worth noting there is no suggestion to re-negotiate the PFI debt. So it would still be paid in full, from your taxes, but would come out of the Department of Health’s budget)
- Answer ‘strongly disagree’ to question 13! It is about Lewisham A&E. And use question 14 to tell them why you want to save it and any ideas you may have.
- Answer ‘neither of these options’ to question 15! – This is a complex question about maternity services. If the A&E closes, they may have to close the maternity wards (obstetric-led units) because emergencies during labour could be risky.
- Question 16. This is a place to say you believe Lewisham A&E is crucial to safe maternity care in Lewisham Hospital, so please don’t close either.
- Question 17 – 20, keep clicking ‘strongly disagree’ or ‘next’ if you like. (Q17-18 relate to surgery. Q19-20 relate to merging South London and Lewisham trusts.)
- Question 21 wants to know if you want Kings College Hospital or another (maybe private) company to run Princess Royal Hospital, Farnborough. Click next or support Kings taking over.
- Question 22 wants to know if you would like some debts at South London Hospital to be written off. Support that idea, or click ‘next’.
- Click through questions 23 and 24 if you want. Or write any comments you may want to make in question 24.
- You have to answer question 25.
- Answer the remaining questions about you. You do not need to say you live in Lewisham or that Lewisham is your nearest hospital, if that is the case. To date, the administrator has undermined our opposition by portraying it as local selfishness. So, if you don’t want the administrator to argue that only people in Lewisham oppose his plans, don’t let them know you are in Lewisham (if you aren’t in Lewisham, please answer the questions).
- SUBMIT the form. Make sure you don’t fall asleep before submitting the form.
A5 .pdf Copy of how to respond
Dr. Louise Irvine’s in-depth explanation of TSA questions: here
See responses from other health professionals here (A&E, critical care, maternity, anaesthetic consultants)
