Save Our Hospitals Say Happy Birthday to the NHS
Campaigners gather outside Charing Cross Hospital on 69th anniversary
Save Our Hospitals campaigners have joined staff, trade unions, health campaigners, patients and members of the public in celebrating the 69th birthday of the NHS.
Save Our Hospitals held a reception outside Charing Cross Hospital on Fulham Palace Road, sharing cakes, biscuits, fruit and glasses of refreshment in a very jolly atmosphere.
People completed ‘hearts’ with messages of support for the NHS.
These were put on a giant birthday card (supplied by Health Campaigns Together and the TUC) which was later presented to Cllr Vivienne Lukey (pictured below) to thank H&F Council for their work in support of local NHS health services and of Charing Cross.
The NHS was founded on 5th July 1948 by the then Minister of Health Aneurin Bevin, whose face and messaffe: "It will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it."
The celebrations came admidst the continuing long running row beween the council and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which includes Charing Cross, over its future.
The row was re-ignited last month after the Guardian newspaper reported seeing details of plans to demolish the current hospital and sell off the vast majority of the "prime real estate" site. Charing Cross would then be replaced with a "local hospital" on just 13% of the site.
You can read the full details here.
In response, Dr William Oldfield, deputy medical director, said: "Some recent media reports about the future of Charing Cross Hospital have been very misleading. They have been based on documents purported to have been drafted to support the north west London sustainability and transformation plan (STP) published last year. These documents were in fact publically released over four years ago – as part of the Shaping a healthier future reconfiguration programme – and refer to plans that have actively not been taken forward.
"The STP has actually provided a good opportunity to agree some firm commitments about how we will approach service change. In a letter to Hammersmith and Fulham Council on 27 March 2017, written jointly with local clinical commissioning groups, we set out how we had come together with other NHS, local authority and voluntary sector partners to develop the STP. This included making a firm commitment that Charing Cross will continue to provide its current A&E and wider services for at least the lifetime of the plan, which runs until April 2021.
"We also made the commitment to work jointly with staff, communities and councils to design new models of care to help people stay healthy and avoid unnecessary or long hospital admissions, and to be sure these new models of care were reducing acute hospital demand before looking to reduce any acute capacity at Charing Cross.
"We invested over £8m in Charing Cross Hospital last year – to refurbish urgent and emergency care wards, theatres, outpatient clinics and lifts and to create a patient service centre and the main new facility for North West London Pathology. We are looking to make further, significant investments this year."
The birthday also came during the transmission of the second series of the much acclaimed BBC Two series Hospital, which once again went behind the scenes to show the extraordinary work of the medical teams and the pressures they are under. You can read more about each other four episodes of the series and join in the discussion they created here.
July 14, 2017
June 23, 2017
