Cllr Krupesh Hirani, Brent Executive member and lead member for Health and Social Care, has tweeted that he door-stepped Sarah Teather MP today with the petition to save Central Middlesex A&E.
He says she refused to sign.
He says she refused to sign.
Good for her.
ReplyDeleteWe need to close about half of London's A&E departments, and convert them to minor injury treatment centres.
The surviving half can have investment to provide a much better ambulance service around the clock for serious cases, and lives would be saved.
I look forward to seeing the results of investment in community health, including the ambulance service, before supporting closure of hospital services. Minor injury treatment centres can be part of (not substitute) for A+E. Don't forget that unless remaining A+E services are radically expanded (staff and equipment), we will all have to wait twice as long in remaining A+E provision.
DeleteI do not agree with the campaign to save the A&E department at Central Middlesex. We should close about half of London’s A&Es, replacing them with 24-hour treatment centres for walk-in minor injuries.
ReplyDeleteThe surviving, bigger A&Es will allow doctors to gain greater experience, with constantly-staffed diagnostic equipment available around the clock, and with consultants immediately available. Clinical outcomes will improve, and fewer patients will die.
The survival factor is the arrival of an ambulance, since paramedics can stabilize patients, and road journeys that take, say, 15 minutes longer, to a bigger hospital, are of little consequence. Arrival delays for ambulances should make newspaper headlines, not where the A&Es are.
Visiting an improving patient after a long and inconvenient road journey is better than a more local trip to a small hospital’s mortuary.
By all means debate WHICH hospital A&Es should close, but the advantage of large emergency hospitals is established world-wide. Not every change is motivated by budget cuts, but it is a pity that the A&E changes weren’t made in the boom years, due to cowardness by politicians.