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FEAR FOR JOBS AS HOSPITALS SET TO MERGE
Warning as radical health shake-up is given the go-ahead
FRONTLINE services in Westminster’s main acute hospital could be axed following approval of a controversial merger deal.
The warning comes from health campaigners after St Mary’s Hospital got the green light to join with Imperial College and Hammersmith Hospital.
The new Academic Health Science Centre – with research scientists working alongside doctors on the wards – will open on October 1.
Managers now face a massive logistical task in planning which services to cut at each site, according to Geoff Martin.
It is feared the A&E could be moved out of the Paddington hospital with doctors forced to compete for resources.
The campaigns chief for the lobby group London Health Emergency said: “Imperial College London’s involvement in the project could be a Trojan horse, to develop cutting-edge research – but at the expense of traditional acute hospital services.
“Will the new centre want to carry out research into areas such as emergency care or care of the elderly? I doubt it. It is likely that those services will be cut and dozens of jobs could go.”
St Mary’s say there will now be a consultation on which services are shipped from St Mary’s to Hammersmith – and that unpopular decisions will have to be made.
Imperial College London this week submitted final proposals to sponsor the centre as a Foundation Trust next year.
It will be the first time that any organisation other than an NHS trust has bid to become a Foundation Trust sponsor.
Mr Martin said: “It will be incredibly damaging. The task of the new centre is to maximise patient referrals and sod everyone else. It is the Sainsbury’s versus Tesco’s methodology – it is all about who is the biggest.
“My main concern is that the Foundation Trust will be in direct competition with neighbouring hospitals. Foundation Trusts are run as a quasi-autonomous business. I don’t think that’s the way to run a properly integrated healthcare system in London. That competitive model should not be applied. There are winners and losers in this government policy and the losers in west London will be Central Middlesex and Charing Cross Hospital.”
Lord Tugendhat, the centre’s new chairman, said: “The creation of the AHSC is a major advance for patient care, clinical teaching and scientific invention and innovation. The fusion of the different strands of our work and the achievements that we can now expect will lead to significant benefits for patients and greater advances in healthcare than those we could have delivered apart.” |
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