South London Healthcare NHS Trust

Baroness Jowell Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I want to meet colleagues from the House but, as I am sure the hon. Lady will understand, I want to be careful not to restart the whole consultation process that has been happening in what I believe is a very thorough way in the past few months. However, one of the things that I will be considering very carefully—and I will listen to any points that the hon. Lady makes when I meet her—is whether the consultation has been done properly, as it needs to be done and as was intended by the legislation. I will not accept any changes unless I am satisfied on that point.

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s apparently open-minded approach to the proposals, which have caused enormous clinical alarm in our hospitals as well as local concern.

Two particular issues affect my constituents and those of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) in relation to King’s College hospital. I ask the Secretary of State to take them seriously. First, should the proposed closures at Lewisham hospital go ahead, that will impact on the King’s College hospital paediatric A and E, which is already overstretched; the staff have enormous concern about their ability to meet any additional demand.

Secondly, will the Secretary of State agree that discussions currently under way to merge the managements of King’s College hospital with those of Guy’s and St Thomas’s should be suspended while the extensive reorganisation threatens the stability of a number of hospitals? If they were to go ahead in parallel, that would risk engulfing our hospitals with preoccupations about reorganisation rather than there being a focus from our world-class hospital staff in south London on treating the patients that we represent.

[Mr Hunt]

The right hon. Lady makes two important points. As she knows, I visited King’s College hospital just before Christmas and was incredibly impressed by what I saw. I visited the geriatric ward and was really impressed, and I am sure that the paediatric service is outstanding as well. It came across to me as an extremely well run hospital. I will, of course, make sure that I consider the impact of the changes proposed by the trust special administrator on King’s, just as I will consider the impact on all surrounding hospitals.

With respect to the merger proposals, because the legislation requires me to come to a decision within 20 working days, the right hon. Lady will find that I have to make and publish my decision quickly enough to ensure that any impact from the changes is properly considered by the people pursuing the possibility of a merger between King’s, Guy’s and Tommy’s.