Edgware General Hospital Accident And Emergency Department Closure

EDM number 954 in 1994-95, proposed by John Gorst on 03/04/1995.

That this House notes that the Secretary of State for Health has received advice that the Accident and Emergency Department of the Edgware General Hospital should be closed after April 1997; notes that this proposal is contrary to the overwhelming opinion of those residing in the catchment area of the hospital; notes that these proposals are based on debatable clinical assumptions allied to conjectural statistics; notes that there are strong social considerations in favour of retaining an Accident and Emergency Department at Edgware; notes that these considerations include transport and traffic problems, a significantly low level of car ownership, a significantly high number of families living on low incomes, an above average incidence of the elderly, the disabled or refugees with health problems and all living within easy access to Edgware Hospital; notes that factors to which the Secretary of State's advisers have given minimal attention in relation to the timing of their proposals include the absence of a reliable ambulance service, the non-existence of funds or plans for alternative care in the community, the opposition from local general practitioners who lack adequate resources to enable them to play a part in implementing any changes; and reminds the Secretary of State that in rejecting the proposals before her she will be giving precedence to the preference of patients and their social needs over both the fashions of medical opinion and the convenience of hospital economists.

This motion has been signed by a total of 10 MPs.