Lewisham A and E is a huge asset - let's keep it that way
By now, you may well have heard of Lewisham and its residents' campaign to save the hospital at the heart of it. I jolly well hope so. Campaigners have made an awful lot of noise about it - and well they ought. Lewisham's Accident and Emergency department is pretty good (it recently had a multi-million-pound refurbishment).
Even so, the A and E, the lifeblood of the hospital itself - one of the top 40 in the UK - is earmarked for closure. Why? Because its neighbouring healthcare trust is broke and the government needs to save face. The special administrator tasked with tackling crippling debts at hospitals in Greenwich and Bromley can come up with "no alternative" than to get rid of a flagship hospital in order to keep a failed one open.
Lewisham Hospital is not in debt. It is both solvent and well-managed, as independent reports attest. It's also well-located at the centre of the borough. If the A and E goes, the maternity unit will have to go too. Complications with births and in neonatal units demand ready access to emergency blood supplies and emergency care equipment and staff. Lewisham would therefore become an urgent care unit. At present, 70 percent of local pregnancies are handled here at Lewisham - 4000 a year. Lewisham already takes patients other hospitals can't; we need more resources in south and south-east London, not fewer.
The hospital is also an important resource for the elderly - its location and the fact it's on multiple bus routes accessible from almost anywhere within the borough as well as further afield are critical. Lewisham isn't a rich borough and it's the vulnerable and the elderly who are most likely to need its emergency care services, in particular. For many, private cars and taxis aren't within their financial grasp.
Getting to the proposed alternative - Queen Elizabeth II Hospital on Woolwich Common - will involve two buses for most people. Allow at least 40 minutes on a good day; more if it's rush hour. Or if you live some way from a bus route heading that way. The 54 bus route from Lewisham is probably the most direct. Or you can take the 108 and change at Blackheath Standard and get another bus along the top of Charlton.
There's a train from Lewisham station to Woolwich Arsenal. The half-hourly direct service deposits you in the centre of Woolwich. It's a long, steep hill or an £8 cab ride from there to QEH II, which sits resplendent in the middle of nowhere in particular. Not so practical if you're a new mum with a buggy and a sick child in need of urgent medical attention. Or a pensioner who uses a stick or a wheelchair.
London Ambulance Service has expressed grave concern at the longer journey times involved in getting emergency patients to Woolwich. Shooters Hill Road and the alternative, the South Circular, are both frequently snarled up. King's College Hospital in Denmark Hill is some way off too, as is the next nearest option, Guys & St Thomas' in central London.
The savings to be made from the proposed Lewisham A and E closure aren't exactly compelling. £195m to implement them and £15.9m per year saved thereafter. That's even taking into account the money raised from selling off 60 percent of the current Lewisham Hospital site. It should make a fair amount - it overlooks a pretty public park which volunteers and council workers paid the minimum wage have spent the past three years landscaping and making into a lovely area in which locals can stroll, cycle and enjoy the wildlife.
Woolwich's hospital is also on a desirable patch for developers, of course, with enviable views across London. But it can't be sold. It's an asset tied up in a PFI contract for which Queen Elizabeth II's namesake is massively in hock.
Were Lewisham and Woolwich intrinsically linked - perhaps by dint of being part of the same healthcare trust - there might be some justice in sacrificing a highly performing, well-respected and solvent hospital in order to save one that was funded in the wrong way from the outset and is difficult to get to even for those who live close by. A few years ago I lived two miles away from QEH II in Plumstead. Getting there was a schlep even from there. If anywhere locally has to become a non-emergency site, then Woolwich would arguably be a better choice.
But we shouldn't even be having the debate. Lewisham is not part of the same healthcare trust as the failed QEH II. And it's a demonstrably better hospital serving its residents admirably and showing how good the NHS can be. Yet this Friday the health secretary Jeremy Hunt will declare whether or not he intends to adopt the recommendations of special administrator Matthew Kershaw and consign one of the country's best-run hospitals to history.
Should Hunt decide to forge ahead with the ill-conceived plan, it's likely there'll be a legal challenge over whether one NHS trust can be sacrificed to save another - imagine the outcry if Essex was robbed to bail out Norfolk. Ridiculous, isn't it? That's what the government's special administrator is trying to do to Lewisham A and E.
20,000 people turned out to protest at the absurdity last weekend; I'm sure many of the drivers cruising past us as we marched past our hospital had come out just to slow down and sound their horns in support.
Regardless of party allegiance, politicians and spokespeople have pledged their support for Lewisham. Every speaker on the recent Question Time debate expressed their horror at Kershaw's nonsensical plans. Newspaper article after newspaper article has queried the wisdom of the proposed closure. There's a succinct visual summary of what's happening here.
Our fight is being seen as a test case as similar A&E and departmental cuts to perfectly good hospitals are being proposed up and down the land. This despite the government underspending its allocated budget to the tune of £1.3bn last year.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a former local resident, called the proposal "scandalous". He's absolutely right.
If you agree, please sign the petition against Kershaw's plans to close Lewisham A and E.
By now, you may well have heard of Lewisham and its residents' campaign to save the hospital at the heart of it. I jolly well hope so. Campaigners have made an awful lot of noise about it - and well they ought. Lewisham's Accident and Emergency department is pretty good (it recently had a multi-million-pound refurbishment).
Even so, the A and E, the lifeblood of the hospital itself - one of the top 40 in the UK - is earmarked for closure. Why? Because its neighbouring healthcare trust is broke and the government needs to save face. The special administrator tasked with tackling crippling debts at hospitals in Greenwich and Bromley can come up with "no alternative" than to get rid of a flagship hospital in order to keep a failed one open.
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| Protestors on the march against proposals to close Lewisham A&E |
The hospital is also an important resource for the elderly - its location and the fact it's on multiple bus routes accessible from almost anywhere within the borough as well as further afield are critical. Lewisham isn't a rich borough and it's the vulnerable and the elderly who are most likely to need its emergency care services, in particular. For many, private cars and taxis aren't within their financial grasp.
Getting to the proposed alternative - Queen Elizabeth II Hospital on Woolwich Common - will involve two buses for most people. Allow at least 40 minutes on a good day; more if it's rush hour. Or if you live some way from a bus route heading that way. The 54 bus route from Lewisham is probably the most direct. Or you can take the 108 and change at Blackheath Standard and get another bus along the top of Charlton.
There's a train from Lewisham station to Woolwich Arsenal. The half-hourly direct service deposits you in the centre of Woolwich. It's a long, steep hill or an £8 cab ride from there to QEH II, which sits resplendent in the middle of nowhere in particular. Not so practical if you're a new mum with a buggy and a sick child in need of urgent medical attention. Or a pensioner who uses a stick or a wheelchair.
London Ambulance Service has expressed grave concern at the longer journey times involved in getting emergency patients to Woolwich. Shooters Hill Road and the alternative, the South Circular, are both frequently snarled up. King's College Hospital in Denmark Hill is some way off too, as is the next nearest option, Guys & St Thomas' in central London.
The savings to be made from the proposed Lewisham A and E closure aren't exactly compelling. £195m to implement them and £15.9m per year saved thereafter. That's even taking into account the money raised from selling off 60 percent of the current Lewisham Hospital site. It should make a fair amount - it overlooks a pretty public park which volunteers and council workers paid the minimum wage have spent the past three years landscaping and making into a lovely area in which locals can stroll, cycle and enjoy the wildlife.
Woolwich's hospital is also on a desirable patch for developers, of course, with enviable views across London. But it can't be sold. It's an asset tied up in a PFI contract for which Queen Elizabeth II's namesake is massively in hock.
Were Lewisham and Woolwich intrinsically linked - perhaps by dint of being part of the same healthcare trust - there might be some justice in sacrificing a highly performing, well-respected and solvent hospital in order to save one that was funded in the wrong way from the outset and is difficult to get to even for those who live close by. A few years ago I lived two miles away from QEH II in Plumstead. Getting there was a schlep even from there. If anywhere locally has to become a non-emergency site, then Woolwich would arguably be a better choice.
But we shouldn't even be having the debate. Lewisham is not part of the same healthcare trust as the failed QEH II. And it's a demonstrably better hospital serving its residents admirably and showing how good the NHS can be. Yet this Friday the health secretary Jeremy Hunt will declare whether or not he intends to adopt the recommendations of special administrator Matthew Kershaw and consign one of the country's best-run hospitals to history.
Should Hunt decide to forge ahead with the ill-conceived plan, it's likely there'll be a legal challenge over whether one NHS trust can be sacrificed to save another - imagine the outcry if Essex was robbed to bail out Norfolk. Ridiculous, isn't it? That's what the government's special administrator is trying to do to Lewisham A and E.
20,000 people turned out to protest at the absurdity last weekend; I'm sure many of the drivers cruising past us as we marched past our hospital had come out just to slow down and sound their horns in support.
Regardless of party allegiance, politicians and spokespeople have pledged their support for Lewisham. Every speaker on the recent Question Time debate expressed their horror at Kershaw's nonsensical plans. Newspaper article after newspaper article has queried the wisdom of the proposed closure. There's a succinct visual summary of what's happening here.
Our fight is being seen as a test case as similar A&E and departmental cuts to perfectly good hospitals are being proposed up and down the land. This despite the government underspending its allocated budget to the tune of £1.3bn last year.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a former local resident, called the proposal "scandalous". He's absolutely right.
If you agree, please sign the petition against Kershaw's plans to close Lewisham A and E.
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