There were two points made at the public meeting on Monday which I thought were very important:

1) Government policy is to keep an A&E department at the Whittington: Health Care for London, the government strategy for the future of the London NHS lists the Whittington as a local hospital and says that all local hospitals should have an A&E department, intensive care unit and maternity unit. If NHS London do come up with plans to close the Whittington A&E they will be breaking government policy.

2) The whole process might turn out to be unnecessary: NHS London tell us that they need to save money to close a blackhole in their funding in future years. But this worry is based on a projection of how much money they might get from future governments, and how much health services might cost to deliver in 10 years time, and both of these are very difficult to predict. For example, the growth in obesity seems to be slowing much quicker than expected, which will save the NHS a lot of money. Equally, if we keep moving quickly out of recession tax revenues will be up and there will be more money for the NHS. It seems daft to start the process of making massive decisions about the future of health services in North London now when we are in a very uncertain political and financial context.

Whatever happens NHS London did say that they will not agree any ‘options’ for the Whittington until the late Summer and will not consult until the Autumn, so we have plenty of time to build the campaign to tell NHS London that the Whittington must keep its major services.

Dazi, Health Care for London