A Rough deal for Hillingdon

I am very concerned about what is happening in the NHS and what it means for Hillingdon residents. Let me give you a sample of what is bleeping loudly on my radar screen.

I am very concerned about what is happening in the NHS and what it means for Hillingdon residents. Let me give you a sample of what is bleeping loudly on my radar screen. The North West London Strategic Health Authority wants to close Harefield Hospital and the Mt Vernon Cancer Centre. Is this agenda driven by clinical evidence or the wishes of patients or local communities? No- it is driven by the need to reduce the number of beds in North West London in response to a financial crisis. The Hillingdon PCT is cutting services. Why? Because they have overtraded and now have to manage the second biggest deficit in the NHS system. Hillingdon patients will pay the price of this mismanagement. The redevelopment of Hillingdon Hospital and Northwood Pinner Community Hospital are frozen. Seven out of ten dentists in Ruislip and Eastcote say that they intend to quit the NHS. I am probably not alone in wondering how we have got to this state of affairs in Hillingdon when close to £90 billion a year of our taxpayers money is swilling around the NHS. Many of you will wonder like me what impact this shambles will all have on the morale of those working in the NHS. This year sees the 25th proposed reorganisation of the NHS since 1982. Can you imagine working in a company that asked employees to live with that degree of permanent change? What have we got to show for it? When the Primeminister said in 1997 that we have '24 hours to save the NHS' , what did he mean? The harsh truth is that politicians and bureaucrats have too often been the problem and not the solution. And so we must brace ourselves for yet another fight to preserve and enhance the local health services that are fundamental to the quality of life in this community. "