Government bites the bullet over A&E closure
pharmafile | September 14, 2011 | News story | | NHS, NHS reform, hosptials
The government has backed the closure of the Accident and Emergency department at Chase Farm hospital in London, ending years of controversy over its future.
The north London hospital will also lose its maternity and children’s services, which will be moved to other hospitals in the area.
The decision has been welcomed by NHS experts who say some hospital services must be moved, merged or closed – but such ‘reconfiguration’ is always hugely unpopular in the local affected area.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley had pledged to save Chase Farm’s A&E in 2007 after the then Labour government said it should be closed. But Lansley said he now accepted a new review by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP), which said Chase Farm should be downgraded.
The IRP review said the current local hospital provision has a “real downside risk in terms of the current safety and sustainability of local services”, suggesting that patient safety and cost considerations both played a part in the decision.
On the IRP’s advice the government will now create a new ‘urgent care centre’ at Chase Farm that will operate for just 12 hours a day.
A&E, maternity and paediatric units will move to Barnet and North Middlesex Hospitals. The Health Secretary will in addition ask NHS London to work with Barnet and Chase Farm Trust and the North Middlesex University Trust, to see whether they could merge their management teams.
Government U-turn
The existing proposals were agreed under the previous Labour administration in 2008, but the coalition government has long resisted the need to implement these plans. In 2007 Lansley, Prime Minister David Cameron and local Tory MP Nick de Bois visited Chase Farm, and pledged to save its A&E department from Labour’s planned cuts.
Lansley called for the decision to be reviewed once again, but has now yielded to the expert advice.
Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of think-tank The King’s Fund, said: “Today’s announcement signals a welcome willingness from ministers to embrace the need for change.
“With some hospitals struggling to provide safe services and growing evidence that many specialist services are best located in fewer facilities that can provide world class care around the clock.”
Ham added that this would be the first of “many difficult decisions that will need to be taken about the provision of hospital services in different parts of the country”.
Ben Adams
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