WHIPPS CROSS: No guarantee hospital will stay open

3:00pm Friday 24th July 2009

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THERE is no guarantee that Whipps Cross University Hospital will stay open, according to the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson.

Speaking to the Guardian during a visit to open a new CT scan suite at the Leytonstone hospital, Mr Johnson refused to reassure patients and staff their hospital would still be here in the future.

“It’s down to the local health service to decide how they want to configure their services,” he said, referring to the Fit for the Future process which threatened the survival of Whipps as a district general hospital.

Although the hatchet fell on another local hospital, King George in Ilford, and it will now be downgraded, it seems that Whipps is not out of the woods yet.

The Secretary of State was also not able to say if Whipps would get the £20 million grant it has applied for to build a new hospital building.

“It’s a matter for the local NHS to decide,” he said again, adding that a “command and control” attitude from central Government was not the way the NHS worked.

He added: “More hospitals are being built in this country than anywhere else.”

However local politicians said they had had assurances from Government that Whipps would get the grant.

Walthamstow MP, Neil Gerrard, said: “I don’t believe Mr Johnson is without influence. We can go back through health minister to health minister who have given us undertakings.”

Mr Gerrard joined Leyton MP Harry Cohen and Chingford MP Iain Duncan Smith to present a united front to the minister in a private meeting after the visit.

Mr Duncan Smith said that the MPs had been given endless promises, going back to the Conservative government, and that new departments like the CT suite were “piecemeal stuff”.

“There is a special case here and we need to get on with it. It’s time to bite the bullet,” he said.

A need for building work at the hospital was something Mr Johnson could not deny.

He praised the hospital, saying: “I can see clearly how the standards of care especially in terms of cancer, cardiovascular disease are very good. I can see how committed the community are to Whipps Cross.”

But he added: “It is a very old building with problems other hospitals don’t have.”

In 2006 and 2007 Whipps Cross was put on a list of hospitals which the NHS was considering downgrading as part of the Fit for the Future process.

A massive campaign was launched to save the hospital, with demonstrations, a march through Waltham Forest, questions asked in Parliament and a 23,000-signature petition delivered to 10 Downing Street.