Battersea: Battle to overturn "flawed" hospital closure

Wandsworth councillors are expected to meet tonight in a bid to block NHS plans to close Battersea's Bolingbroke Hospital - reports Your Local Guardian.

The council's health scrutiny committee is expected to refer the planned closure to Health Secretary Alan Johnson urging him to keep Bolingbroke open.

Referring the case to Mr Johnson would provide at least a temporary reprieve for Bolingbroke after bosses at Wandsworth Primary Care Trust and St George's Healthcare Trust decided to shut the hospital earlier this month.

Committee chairman Ian Hart said the decision to close the 104-year-old hospital was taken in the face of massive public opposition.

The council is expected to call on Mr Johnson to reverse the flawed decision by the two NHS trusts because health chiefs have not adequately responded to the deep concerns expressed by the committee.

"We will be calling on Mr Johnson to overturn this unpopular and illogical decision," Coun Hart said.

London: Hospitals fail to meet superbug targets

London hospitals are struggling to cope with deadly superbugs, despite a major hygiene drive in the NHS - reports the Evening Standard.

Figures released today by the Health Protection Agency show rising rates of the potentially fatal stomach bug Clostridium Difficile.

Almost 1,680 people contracted the bug in the first three months of this year - a rise of 14% on the previous three months.

Additionally, around 1,200 people contracted MRSA - 25% more than the target level.

The figures come only days after chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson attacked hospitals for an "unacceptable level of hygiene".

Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Hospitals Trust was issued with an improvement notice last month for serious breaches of the rules, including basic measures such as not having alcohol hand-rubs.

The highest numbers of C.Difficile cases were at Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals (Theresa Villiers MP and Joan Ryan MP), with 188 in the three months from January to March.

There were 132 cases at Whipps Cross (Harry Cohen MP), 123 cases at St George's Healthcare NHS Trust (Sadiq Kahn MP & Martin Linton MP) and 118 at Kingston Hospital (Ed Davey MP).

Other hospitals where cases of MRSA are on the increase include Newham University Hospital (Lyn Brown MP), Hillingdon Hospital (John Randall MP), and West Middlesex University Hospital (Ann Keen MP).

Many other London hospitals, while reducing the number of cases over previous years, still suffer a problem. And MPs would surely agree that even one superbug case is one too many.

So are these MPs going to vote to waste billions of pounds extra on the audit-failing EU - completely without justification - while their constituency hospital needs further investment to improve hygiene?

People are dying due to this hygiene problem. Can't the EU manage to get by on the £3.5bn a year (net) we already hand over every year? That's surely more than our fair share.