London: Health summit paves way for abolition of traditional hospitals

A major health summit is taking place today will change the face of the NHS in London, reports the Evening Standard.

Senior managers and doctors are meeting to draw up plans that will abolish traditional hospitals.

They are finalising a major consultation document that asks every Londoner to decide if GPs should move into big polyclinics.

Patients will be asked a series of crucial questions - signed off at today's meeting - that will lead to the massive changes next year.

They will be asked about the centralisation of services such as trauma care, treatment of children and the care of stroke victims should be centralised away from local hospitals into so-called "specialist" centres.

And whether more maternity departments should be run by midwives instead of doctors.

The consultation will be launched at the end of the month and is likely to trigger battles to
save local services.

Bosses have refused to name the hospitals and surgeries that should close and are consulting on "ideas" first.

Robert Creighton, chief executive of Ealing primary care trust, and one of the leaders of the consultation, said: "We want to get people's views about the proposals and we intend genuinely to listen to what the public have to say."

But doctors have warned that the plan is being driven through. Dr Stewart Drage, head of Londonwide Local Medical Committees, said: "We have reservations about this whole process. We are concerned that the local input is going to be very limited."

It comes as campaigners find out the results of a consultation to downgrade Chase Farm hospital in north Enfield.

Thousands have been fighting plans to move A&E and maternity services to Barnet and North Middlesex and make Chase Farm a community hospital.

The summit meeting into changes across the capital - taking place at the Sofitel hotel near St James's Park - could mean the plans for Barnet and Chase Farm change again.

The proposals are based on plans drawn up in the summer by junior health minister Lord Darzi, who is now leading a nationwide review of the NHS.

Questions must be asked as to whether these changes are being driven more by attempts at cost-cutting than to enhance patient care.

With MPs voting an extra £7bn to the European Union completely without justification on Monday of this week, public funds for essential services are becoming increasingly tight.

It's time MPs looked again at the real priorities of those they represent, before they give final approval to this multi-billion-pound funding increase to an organisation that has failed its annual audit for 13 years and is beset by reports of needless extravagance, waste and fraud.

Come next year, it'll be no good MPs posturing in protest against hospital closures in their constituencies if they've voted to waste such vast sums of public money on the EU. They will be personally responsible for the money running out, and themselves can expect to pay the price at the ballot box.