Smaller hospitals under threat - Penning tells MPs

Penning warns MPs - your hospitals could end up like Hemel's.

In his first speech as a Shadow Health Minister, Mike Penning wound up a Parliamentary debate on ‘Smaller General Hospitals’ on behalf of the opposition.

He told MPs worried for their local hospitals that the continued push in the NHS for “big is beautiful” is being made at the expense of smaller general hospitals. He told them that they were right to be concerned, as the closure of the A&E department or maternity unit is often just the start.

He said:

”If we lose acute A and E, what do we lose with it? We are highly likely to lose acute cardiac units—that has already happened in my hospital—and we will also lose stroke units and almost certainly intensive care beds. Then those involved start looking at elective surgery—but what happens if something goes wrong during elective surgery? We need the acute back-up. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that is happening across the country.”

Mike went on to address his concerns that the public is being misled or at best left in a state of confusion.

He said:

“I am greatly concerned that we are leaving the public in a dangerous situation. Those who drive through my constituency of Hemel Hempstead will see signs everywhere saying, ‘Hospital: A&E’. There is no A&E; it is a minor injuries unit. If those with acute conditions drive there, the hospital will do its best, but the patients will then be transferred by ambulance to the nearest acute hospital, perhaps to Watford.

“It is wrong to allow any trust—or any politician—to mislead the public into thinking that a hospital has certain facilities when it does not. It will cost lives. It is fundamentally wrong.”

He ended with the comments:

“It is a crying shame that we are not having a general election. If we had had one, a Conservative Government would have led a moratorium on those closures. We would have been able to protect the services that our constituents so rightly deserve.”

After the debate he was asked is there anything that can still be done to save services at Hemel hospital, he said:

“While the infrastructure in Hemel still exists there is always hope and I will do everything in my power to save Hemel hospital!”