Sadiq Khan Mayor of London
Navin Shah GLA Brent & Harrow
Labour Party Londonwide
Campaigns
Central Middlesex Hospital
Navin Shah AM protests against the A&E closure at Central Middlesex Hospital
I joined a scheduled rally today (Wednesday) outside Central Middlesex Hospital with many campaigners protesting against the closure of the A&E unit at Central Middlesex Hospital.
The A&E units will today shut their doors, despite a Care Quality Commission (CQC) report into the North West London Hospital Trust giving the A&E unit at Central Middlesex Hospital a ‘good’ grade. The same report graded neighbouring Northwick Park Hospital A&E (which will remain open and is expected to pick up the slack) as ‘requires improvement’, and found “inadequate staffing levels to provide safe care to patients within the majors treatment area” at Northwick Park. Many angry residents and campaigners attended the rallies at both Central Middlesex Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital urging the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt to reconsider his decision to allow on the closure of the A&E units at Central Middlesex Hospital and Hammersmith Hospital.
Today is a very sad day for the NHS in west London. This level of A&E closures is unprecedented and amounts to a policy experiment with no safety measures. When Central Middlesex Hospital’s A&E closes, its patients will be sent to the underperforming, overworked and unsafe facilities at Northwick Park.
It is disgraceful that the Health Secretary thinks it is acceptable to close a ‘good’ A&E unit at Central Middlesex Hospital, while the neighbouring Northwictk Park Hospital that will pick up the pressure was judged as ‘requires improvement’, will be beyond belief for the thousands of my Brent residents who today see their local A&E axed. Despite all the evidence, the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been blindly intent on pushing through these flawed closures. My constituents in Brent expect and deserve better from those running their NHS. It is deplorable that Mayor of London has acted like a bystander and done nothing to help save A&Es from closure. This decision is a travesty.
Published by NeonHorizon. Promoted by Keith Ferry on behalf of Navin Shah, both at 20 Byron Road, Harrow, HA3 7ST
Navin Shah is the Labour Party's candidate for the London Assembly seat of Brent and Harrow 2016