Health and Social Care Bill

Debate between Hugh Bayley and Henry Smith

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Henry Smith]

My hon. Friend is indeed legendary at Crawley hospital, and it is great to take part in this debate with him. Unlike him, I do not have a health background. My wife used to work in the NHS, but my background is as a local elected representative of my community and as a patient, and as someone whose family has had experience of the NHS.

I am afraid that I shared the bitter experience of many in Crawley during the 13 years in which the Labour party was in government. On 1 May 1997, when Labour took office, Crawley had an A and E department and a maternity unit. I am sorry to say that in 2001, Crawley hospital lost the maternity unit. At the time of a rather joyous occasion for my family, it was saddening that my children could not be born in our local hospital.

[Hugh Bayley]

The hon. Gentleman champions localism, but has he picked up that maternity services will be taken away from GP consortia under the Bill? Is that a good thing?

[Henry Smith]

I dispute that reading of the Bill. Maternity was taken away from my local community in 2001 and is now 10 miles up the road, in another county, and accessible only by single-carriageway roads, which is at best inconvenient, and at worst dangerous for patients.

The sorry tale goes on. In 2005, under Labour, Crawley hospital lost its A and E unit to East Surrey hospital—10 miles up the road, in another county—which has been seriously detrimental to my constituents, and something that they and I very much regret.

I was struck by many of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), because he mentioned things very similar to our experiences in Crawley—and listening to other right hon. and hon. Members, there seem to have been similar experiences across the country as well. I can speak only from my local experience, but there was an eerie resonance in the sort of downgrading of services under the Labour Government.