backing controversial decision to close Bolingbroke Hospital
The minister's decision, announced earlier this month, finally brings to an end the long-running local campaign to keep the hospital open. All its remaining services will now be split up and moved to other NHS facilities in the borough.
Responding to the decision, the chairman of the council's health scrutiny committee Cllr Ian Hart said: "It is a great pity that the minister has not paid greater attention to the very strong depth of local feeling against this closure.
"Ninety one per cent of those who responded to the official NHS consultation said that services should not be moved from the Bolingbroke. Instead local people wanted the hospital modernised and services expanded.
"There were also petitions, postcard campaigns and online surveys which attracted nearly 17,000 votes against the closure plans. Unfortunately this huge weight of public opposition has been disregarded by the minister and his advisers.
"The two trusts that pushed for this closure and the minister all say that this might only be a temporary closure, and that at some stage in the future some medical services could be restored to the Bolingbroke site.
"However, there is no clear statement from the Department of Health that this will actually happen or that sufficient funds will be made available for this at any specific time in the future.
"So while it appears that the battle to save the Bolingbroke as a community hospital may have been lost, what we must all do now is work together to deliver the best possible future healthcare facilities for the people of Battersea and north Wandsworth.
"The Wandsworth Teaching Primary Care Trust, the body that oversees the borough's NHS services, has been consulting residents in this part of the borough on how healthcare should be provided to them over the next decade.
"The consultation document suggests that a good way of meeting population needs would be the development of a 'multi-disciplinary healthcare centre' which would house a wide range of health services for patients from across the area.
"Modernising and refurbishing the Bolingbroke is an affordable and realistic option for this. The council's view is that it would still be appropriate for a range of services to be housed there including services for the elderly, young families and mothers-to-be.
"I am sure that those campaigners who have fought so tirelessly to save the Bolingbroke will wish to keep on arguing its case as a hub for health care in north Wandsworth."
November 26, 2007
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