Hospital Services (South London) Debate
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Nick Raynsford
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Hospital Services (South London)
Nick Raynsford Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Heidi Alexander
I acknowledge that a decision has yet to be taken, and I take this opportunity to press the Minister to confirm that the decision will be taken on 1 February. If it will be taken before then, it would be useful to know. We are here to present the case for refusing the recommendation.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has been making a powerful case. I want to pick up on the Minister’s interjection to the effect that no decision has yet been made and to reinforce my hon. Friend’s point that if changes as fundamental as those proposed in the trust special administrator’s report are introduced but are not safe and do not have clinicians’ true support, we run the risk of repeating the very mistakes of the last reconfiguration, which created South London Healthcare NHS Trust, and which proved not to be as financially sound as was expected when it was proposed. That is a real risk, and I hope that the Minister will pay attention to it.
Heidi Alexander
My right hon. Friend has consistently made that point in the House, and I totally agree.
It is a fact that maternity services in south London are under enormous pressure. In the 20 months between April 2011 and November 2012 providers of maternity services across south-east London suspended services on 37 occasions. Women in labour were therefore turned away from hospitals and told that they would have to go elsewhere. Of those 37 suspensions, 26 were necessary because of lack of beds. King’s College hospital also tried to suspend services on a further six occasions, but was unable to do so as no other unit had capacity to accept the women it was trying to transfer.