Oral Answers to Questions

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Q6. The Bunny Hill and Washington urgent care centres in my constituency, and the Houghton urgent care centre in my neighbouring constituency, are under threat of closure by the Sunderland clinical commissioning group. It is not good enough for the Prime Minister just to say that these are simply local decisions, because local people certainly do not want those closures. What will she say to my constituents who rely on those vital urgent care centres, and to the staff at Sunderland Royal A&E who are going to have to deal with the aftermath of the closures?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady complains to me that we want decisions to be taken at local level by the NHS, but I believe it is absolutely right that decisions are taken at local level. When the NHS takes those decisions, the important thing is that it puts the interests of patients, the safety of patients and the treatment of patients first. She has raised this particular issue, and I continue to believe that it is right not for politicians here to make a decision like that but for actual clinicians and others working in the national health service to do so.