CLOSURE OF ST PAULS' EYE HOSPITAL, LIVERPOOL

EDM number 273 in 1990-91, proposed by Robert Parry on 19/12/1990.

That this House deplores proposals to close St Paul's Eye Hospital and the Royal Liverpool Nursing School to enable the Royal Liverpool Hospital to `opt out' of district health authority control; recognises that this would reduce bed numbers from 52 to 30, further overcrowd the Royal Liverpool Hospital with 50,000 more out-patients annually and further increase waiting lists; deplores linked proposals to cut nurse tutors from 78 to 62 by transferring teaching to Liverpool Polytechnic; questions why it is now proposed to split-off one sixth of St Paul's consultancies to the less accessible Fazakerley Hospital 10 miles away, when the purported reason for closure was to transfer the unit intact; understands that there will be no children's facilities at the Royal Liverpool Hospital and that children will be moved to Alderhey Hospital, depriving those in need of complex eye operations of sophisticated laser and other equipment paid for by public donations and previously available to them at St Paul's; further understands that Liverpool Health Authority is claiming that the closure is a transfer to reduce the consultation period from three months to eight weeks, and that even this shortened procedure is a sham because building work to accommodate the move has already begun; understands that Unit 1 general manager Robert Tinston will benefit financially through performance-related pay from these cuts; and calls for the Secretary of State for Health to reconsider this `opt out' proposal on the basis of all the information available.

This motion has been signed by a total of 48 MPs.