In July, Tory Health Minister Andrew Lansley MP hand-picked a ‘special administrator’ to take over South London Healthcare Trust. The administrator, Matthew Kershaw, has completed a draft report that recommends 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 wants to sell 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.
The administrator 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.
Lewisham residents, MPs, the mayor and hospital workers across both trusts have come together to support a campaign group to oppose the recommendations- Save Lewisham A&E. Lewisham residents don’t want to be punished for the political failures of recent years and they feel the administrator process has been abused to attack the NHS- which is why the administrator exceeded his jurisdiction at South London Healthcare and swung the axe at nearby Lewisham.
If the newly-refurbished Lewisham A&E closes, the boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley (population 750,000) will have 1 accident and emergency to share. Lewisham has the lowest male life expectancy in London. This is not a ‘difficult decision’ that the government is making, it is a ‘deadly decision’.
South London Healthcare has inherited immense debts caused by political mismanagement- unaffordable bank loans were taken out at the same time rules were introduced to ban the NHS distributing money from profitable areas to those that were in need. So, despite excellent rates of infection and low mortality, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, Princess Royal, Farnborough and Orpington Hospital were deemed failures.
The NHS is now structured so that individual trusts cannot receive surplus money from other areas, but when it comes to savage cuts, the opposite applies. The government is using semantic arguments about why £4billion pounds of NHS cash reserves can’t be used and why Lewisham A&E should close. The fact is, if you have a road accident on the South Circular, Jeremy Hunt is happy to risk that you could die on your way to hospital so that he can repay the banks without using NHS reserves. Indeed, the Treasury has taken back £1billion from the NHS, punishing it for savings made in the last few years.
The recommendation to close Lewisham A&E is part of an ideological assault on the NHS. The administrator’s plans to make cuts and close local competitors is designed to make South London’s services more attractive to private healthcare. Although some NHS Trusts have expressed an interest in running South London’s services, so have many private companies. The tendering process will be overseen by Jeremy Hunt, not the administrator. It is likely to be focussed on cost and servicing the debt, rather than quality. So although headlines are focussed on local trusts, private health companies are at an advantage when they compete on cost, because they don’t bear the costs of A&E’s, intensive care, or training medical professionals.
Do not be fooled into thinking any of our A&Es have to close for the sake of patients, it is being done to attack our NHS. Lewisham Healthcare runs a successful hospital, which could die a slow death if the administrator’s plans are taken up.
References:
Information about the NHS’s £4billion reserves… which are not allowed to help South London Healthcare.
Treasury raids £1billion from NHS
Lewisham has lowest male life exptency in London
333 donations totalling £8.3million made to Tories… from health companies that benefit from South London Healthcare not being allowed to access NHS reserves.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt supports a plan for replacing the NHS with personal ‘savings accounts’… Fine for those who can afford and manage savings. The argument helps with ‘shifting of health off the government books’ and solves the problem of a ‘system which disconnects the consumer from the cost consequences of their decisions’. See page 195 for the Health Secretary’s signature.
Route to Darent Valley… The next stop when Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital is full- which is already a regular occurence, since Queen Mary’s, Sidcup, closed.
