Kingston Hospital's A&E and maternity services under threat (From Your Local Guardian)

Kingston Hospital's A&E and maternity services under threat

4:13pm Monday 25th January 2010

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Kingston Hospital’s accident and emergency and maternity units could face the axe, after it was revealed today that they were on a shortlist for closure.

Liberal Democrat MPs Susan Kramer and Edward Davey said today they had met with high-ranking officials and been told NHS London plans to close A&E and maternity units in south west London.

They said a shortlist of two options had been drawn up by health bosses and one of them was to close the A&E and maternity departments at the Galsworthy Road hospital.

The MPs have launched a pre-emptive campaign - with a website, savekingstonhospital.org.uk - to try and stop the closures and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, whose third child was born at Kingston’s maternity unit last February, joined them at the hospital on Sunday.

Ms Kramer, MP for Richmond Park, and Mr Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, said they had been told London had been divided into sections and reached the conclusion only three A&E and maternity units were needed in the area, rather than the four that currently exist - St George’s Hospital, Tooting, Mayday Hospital, Croydon, St Helier Hospital, Carshalton, and Kingston.

NHS London had been due to publish a report looking at options for reducing the services in December but it was delayed until this week and the MPs have now been told nothing will be revealed to the public until after the general election, believed to be earmarked for May 6.

Ms Kramer said: “This would gut our hospital.

“NHS bosses have no business keeping these ideas secret because there’s an election, that’s exactly why people have a right to know.

“I just hope as many people as possible join our campaign so we can defeat this ludicrous idea before the election.”

Ms Kramer said the proposal was for borough residents who currently use Kingston Hospital to travel to St George’s, in Tooting, for A&E and maternity services.

And she added Queen Mary’s Hospital, in Roehampton, used to provide A&E and maternity services before the departments there were closed and the hospital “faded away”.

“When a hospital doesn’t have an A&E and maternity unit it ceases to be what we think of as a general hospital,” she continued.

Mr Davey said he was extremely angry at the suggestion and said it ought to be unthinkable, he described the proposed closures as “totally unacceptable”.

A spokesman for Kingston Hospital NHS Trust said: “Kingston Hospital welcomes the debate on how healthcare provision is best organised in the future. Senior clinical staff have been working with NHS London on the south-west London Review for some time now.

“Kingston Hospital has provided the community with excellent maternity and A&E provision for many years and we look forward to continuing to provide an increasingly enhanced service to our community in the future.”

In a statement, the clinical directors for Healthcare for South West London - Gavin Marsh, Dr Howard Freeman and Dr Martyn Wake - said:

“Hospitals and PCTs are looking to improve all healthcare services in south west London but there are no proposals to close any service in south west London.

"Clinicians from across south west London are leading work to identify how we can improve the health and healthcare for local people.

"Clinicians believe we must improve the quality of care for local people and look at new ways of delivering care, such as providing better access to urgent care at hospital and in the community.

"This work is at an early stage and has not considered any specific sites for closure nor have they agreed any numbers of hospitals that will be required to deliver A&E, maternity, complex surgery, critical care or specialist children’s care.

"We will refine these ideas working with clinicians, patients and other stakeholders over the coming months.”

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