No proposals or guarantees on future of Kingston Hospital (From Surrey Comet)

No proposals or guarantees on future of Kingston Hospital

5:35pm Tuesday 26th January 2010 in

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The organisation accused of putting together proposals which include downgrading Kingston Hospital's accident and emergency and maternity units has declined to offer guarantees on their future.

Yesterday, Kingston’s Liberal Democrat MPs Susan Kramer and Edward Davey said senior NHS managers had told them that a review of hospitals across south-west London had concluded that only three out of of four hospitals should have either a maternity unit or an A&E.

They said Kingston was high on the list for losing one or both.

Gavin Marsh, clinical director of Healthcare for South-west London, the body which is carrying out the review, said: "Hospitals and PCTs are looking to improve all healthcare services in south-west London but there are no proposals to close any hospitals in south-west London.

"Clinicians from across south-west London are leading work to identify how we can improve the health and healthcare for local people.

"Clinicians believe we must improve the quality of care for local people and look at new ways of delivering care, such as providing better access to urgent care at hospital and in the community.

"This work is at an early stage and has not considered any specific sites for closure, nor have they agreed any numbers of hospitals that will be required to deliver A&E, maternity, complex surgery, critical care or specialist children’s care.

"Clinicians will be considering possible solutions to the challenges facing the sector, including more babies, an older population and potentially more illness increasing demand for healthcare services, and we will refine these ideas working with clinicians, patients and other stakeholders in the coming months."

About 100 GPs, surgeons, began working on the review in June 2009, following on from the Darzi report in 2008 which recommended sweeping changes in the way health was delivered across the capital.

They have all agreed not to discuss invidual sites in their meetings, the next of which will take place on February 11 in Croydon, according to a spokesman for Healthcare for South West London.

She said: "We can't speculate on what is going to be suggested by clinicians in the future."

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