Hospital Services (South London)

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Jim Dowd

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, referring to the four tests for service reconfigurations that his own Government have said must be met if changes are to be made. GPs in Lewisham are opposed to these changes, and they have been very vocal in making their case.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I join others in congratulating her on securing this extremely timely debate. She said a few moments ago that she did not understand where this plan had come from. Has she considered that it is merely a rehash of the scheme that NHS London tried to get past the “Picture of Health” review four or five years ago but failed miserably, both in the review itself and in the subsequent re-examination by Professor Sir George Alberti, and that in its death throes—NHS London only has a few months before it is extinguished by this Government—it is trying to get through the scheme to reduce hospitals in south London from five to four, and for no other reason than that it thinks that that reduction should happen?

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend has a long history of working and campaigning on health issues in south-east London, and I agree with his analysis that the scheme that he refers to may have been one of the places from which these proposals for Lewisham hospital emerged. I said earlier that these changes are unwanted. In addition, I want to say today that they are also unfair, unsafe and unjustified. I will now take a few minutes to tell Members why that is the case.

Why are these proposals unfair? The closure of Lewisham’s A and E department and its maternity department has been recommended to the Secretary of State for Health by the special administrator to the South London Healthcare NHS Trust. In July last year, the special administrator was appointed to the trust, which is made up of the three hospitals to the east and south of Lewisham—Woolwich, Sidcup and Farnborough hospitals. The administrator’s job was to find a way to balance the trust’s books. It was the first time that a special administrator had ever been appointed in the NHS, and the first time that the unsustainable providers regime—that is, the process for sorting out failing hospital trusts—has been used anywhere in the country.

The trust had, and still has, serious financial problems. I should be clear: Lewisham is not part of the trust; nor does it share the trust’s financial problems. Lewisham hospital is a solvent and successful hospital. Its management has worked hard during the past five to 10 years to improve standards of care and to make the hospital more efficient. Yet, because Lewisham hospital is next to the South London Healthcare NHS Trust, because it has only a modest private finance initiative, so there are not as many constraints on the site as on the two big PFI hospitals at Woolwich and Farnborough, and possibly because of its location in relation to surrounding hospitals, the special administrator decided to recommend the closure of its A and E and maternity departments.

As I said, the draft proposals were published at the end of October. There ensued six weeks of the worst public consultation that I have ever seen. There was no direct mailing to the people affected, and there were opaque and complicated questions in the consultation document. There was not even a direct question about the closure of Lewisham A and E. To add insult to injury, there was no question at all about the sale of the land at the hospital.

Not only are my constituents up in arms about the so-called consultation, but they are rightly asking how Lewisham got dragged into this. Why does it have to pay such a heavy price for financial failures elsewhere? How can it be right that a process set up to sort out financial problems in a failing trust has led to services being cut at a separate, well-performing, financially stable hospital? I cannot answer those questions; nor can I explain why such a significant reconfiguration of emergency and maternity services is being proposed.

The statutory guidance to trust special administrators and the written statement that the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), made to the House when he enacted the special administration regime last summer clearly state that the process should not be used as a back-door approach to service reconfiguration. I laughed out loud when I read those words in the statutory guidance, because that is exactly what is happening in south London. If closing A and E and maternity departments is not a service reconfiguration, I honestly do not know what is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Dowd]

On that very point, does my hon. Friend accept that the trust special administrator has deliberately manipulated the figures, in both the draft and final reports, to mask the fact that the proposal would push King’s at least and probably Queen Elizabeth hospital, Woolwich as well over the 8,000 births a year mark?

[Heidi Alexander]

I do not know whether the trust special administrator has deliberately manipulated figures, but the way that the figures have been presented looks quite suspicious.

The plans are completely unjustified. There has been much talk in recent weeks of the need for things to do what it says on the tin. The metaphorical tin with respect to the recommendations of the trust special administrator presumably says it will resolve the financial problems of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust and put the health economy in south-east London on a stable footing. I do not think the proposals before us do that. It will be necessary to spend £195 million on a one-off basis to make changes at hospitals in south London, to deal with the displaced demand for A and E and maternity care that will result from the closure of services at Lewisham. It is not clear to me where that money is coming from: which Department of Health budget is it to come from? Has the Treasury approved that non-recurrent expenditure? If it has not approved the required capital outlay, the plans fall apart. Perhaps the Minister can deal with that point.

The changes to the Lewisham site would involve demolition of the recently refurbished A and E, so that the land could be sold. Long after the A and E was knocked down, the hospital would still be paying £400,000 a year in loan repayments for the £12 million it borrowed to make the improvements. That is a bit like someone taking out a loan to do up their kitchen and knocking down that part of the house while still paying money back to the bank.

Another big question relates to the continuing year in, year out costs of the changes. The possibility of a double maternity shift at King’s and St Thomas’s, which I have mentioned, is just one example, and would surely add hugely to the bill. How much would it cost to implement a community-based care strategy to reduce the need for hospital services? Where is the money coming from?

If the proposed changes to A and E and maternity care in south-east London cannot be justified financially, do not result in better health outcomes and are unfair and unwanted, why on earth are we here to debate them today? The Government have consistently said that changes will not be made unless four specific tests are met, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford and the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) have mentioned. In the present case, the tests are not met. The chair of the local commissioning group is opposed to the changes, as are virtually all Lewisham GPs. The process should result in strengthened patient and public involvement, but the current process has resulted in strengthened disillusionment among the public, and little else. Proposals should be based on a sound clinical evidence base—but the evidence base in the present case is virtually non-existent. It is also stated that the Government will not make changes to such major services unless doing so will strengthen and improve patient choice; the special administrator’s own report recognises that the proposals will result in a weakening of patient choice.

As I said earlier, the proposals are unwanted, unfair, unsafe and unjustified. Last week the NHS Commissioning Board announced a review of emergency care, to be led by the NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh. I welcome that review, but what is the point of it if the Government are just going to push ahead with their proposals in south London? The chaotic handling of the process in Lewisham cannot be right. It rides roughshod over the wishes of the community and local clinicians. For the life of me, I cannot see how it is in the best interests of my constituents or the people of south London. I urge the Minister to reject these rushed and ill-conceived plans and to do as her party’s manifesto says:

“stop the forced closure of A and E and maternity wards, so that people have better access to local services”.

I am not asking for better access; I am just asking for the access that currently exists for people in Lewisham to be maintained.