Ealing Hospital Maternity closing on 30 June 2015

[Redkite2015]

Barely a week after election with promises to safeguard NHS and this morning's appearance on TV and reiteration of promises by Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, date for closure of Maternity Services at Ealing Hospital has been decided.

Ealing Hospital's maternity services are being merged with Northwick Park Hospital which recently has been given poor rating by Care Quality Commission, where as Ealing Hospital had satisfactory rating.

Would Northwick park cope with 3,000 extra deliveries? It is already so over loaded that matertnity ward had to be closed and patients transferred to Ealing Hospital just in the last weeks.

Labour had won Ealing and Acton from Conservatives in the last election. Southall also has Labour MP.

Is there any one who could make Jeremy Hunt listen?

Hi Redkite2015 - we'll pop this over to Politics for you now.

Southall and Ealing population, specially expecting mothers, would suffer badly as Northwick Park is already over loaded and does not have sufficient capacity to take another 3,000 births.

Other nearby hospital, West Middlesex is also full to capacity and suffers from poor ratings by Care Quality Commission.

Are overpaid health managers expecting local mothers to be shunted around all over North and West London?

Hunt promised an extra £8 bil a year to carry out NHS Director Stevens plan, some are saying will not be enough, while Labour promised around £2.5 bil a year extra via a mansion tax many senior Labour MP's either disagreed with or thought it was a bad idea to base such important funding requirement on.

Think how many more mergers there would have been.

Where is the report on why this merger was thought necessary?

There is a view among the overpaid health managers that maternity would be better provided in large hospitals. Ealing Hospital is situated in between Queen Charlotte to the east, West Middlesex to the South and Northwick Park to the North. So Ealing must be axed and service transferred to Northwick Park, which has 'Requires Improvement' rating from CQC.

It doesn't matter to these overpaid health barons if the merger means poor service or that Ealing is being merged in already over loaded hospital which has to shift their patients to Ealing and very likely, that further load would increase risk to the expecting mothers and their new borns.

I don't have the time at the mo to look for the official 'pros and cons' of the merger as going out for most of the afternoon, so if you or anyone else has it, may we look at it please?

www.healthiernorthwestlondon.nhs.uk/hospitals

That is as official as you would get. They would not put out that every local Council and most of the responses from patients, doctors and midwives opposed closure of Ealing Hospital Maternity Service.

If you have time to comment, then please also take out time to google and search for protests from the local bodies, local patients groups, doctors and other NHS staff. The reading will keep you busy for weeks.

In a nutshell, it looks as if 7 hospitals had to become 6 and need better coverages/service (or whatever the excuse is at any given time) and Ealing lost out.

When we lived in London many, many, moons ago with what I believed was deemed a 'cottage hospital', and where we are now 10-12 years ago, we had a similar 'consolidations' into one honking big one - and so neither of the two old Victorian or sooner buildings where my three children were born exist as maternity hospitals/units - although the buildings are still there and not, to my knowledge, Wetherspoon Pubs (yet).

I can't ever recall reading that the locals say 'please close ours' but recall many a view that people would die if it did.

It looks like Ealing was 'the favourite' for closure before the election, so although unfortunate for the people of Ealing who have campaigned so hard, it doesn't to me look as if you were subjected to a post electoral scam, or do you disagree?

Very simplistic view, which totally ignores rising birth rates in London, lack of sufficient capacity at other hospitals, high proportion of women with high risk factors.

For last 2 years Ealing was being gradually run down; decision to close was taken last year, only delayed till election, it seems. Post electoral scam, well that's your words and quite a good description.

Redkite2015 ... the 7 into 6 hospitals were all in N.W London I believe, so I don't get your point about rising London birth rates, unless rocketing in Ealing vs the surrounding London areas.

Next according to this link, the decision was taken months before the General Election and one of the gripes was how much money had recently been spent, not being 'run down'.
www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/maternity-unit-ealing-hospital-close-7908025

Finally I have no idea which Ealing constituency the hospital is in, but if it was in the Ealing Acton, previously held by a Conservative MP with a small majority and the decision was made in March - the seat was won by a Labour candidate, so where is the scam there, if democracy was allowed to punish the governments decision?

If it was the Ealing seat held by that Labour MP clown Stephen Pound, who even made himself look stupid Swearing Oath to the Queen by shouting the other day (so don't bode well for the next 5-years), he won by a similar margin as before and maybe could have done more.

How can anyone allow this?
For 20+ years I have paid my PAYE, 20% or whatever vat, Council taxes in London, All us normal working people have.

The city elites have stolen this money i pay all my life for services such as maternity units. No money left MY ARSE. The city bankers still have it.

Don't know about you but i am MAD AS HELL

Linquini ... you appear to have many indirect 'issues' there versus any need to rationalise 7 West London units into 6, is this the first one you have seen in those 20-years?

Now whether this decision was due to efficiency (as they see it) or costs, everyone, not just the 'normal' people, own a current £87 billion government overspend, so your tax pounds are already spent, before you EARN them.

As to lashing out at bankers on not paying their way, the facts show that if they hadn't been for the past 30-years we'd have far fewer services e.g. the year just gone.

Dec 2014; ”U.K. Financial Firms Paid the Most Tax Since 2007, Report Says”

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-02/u-k-financial-firms-paid-the-most-tax-since-2007-report-says

”The U.K. financial-services industry contributed £65.6 billion ($103 billion) in taxes in the last fiscal year, the highest since 2007, according to a report.”

^”Financial-services firms, which employ more than 1.1 million people in the U.K., represent 11.5 percent of total government tax receipts, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP report prepared for the City of London Corp. published today.

And that £65 billion is just the direct contribution to the UK economy, as once you add up the consumption/spending of those salaries on surrounding and local businesses/employment/earnings, I once saw that it works out closer to £90 billion.

NHS is hoping for cost cut by this merger. But at what cost?

Ealing's maternity is being merged with Northwick Park, which does not have capacity as it is. So where will these 3,000 births will be delivered and at what risk?

Saving lives can not always be measured in cost and efficiency. Your baby will be born when due. Would you want to expedite it by c-section or delay it until it is grave risk to the life of both mother and child?

It is good to support a political party with conviction, but don't close your eyes.

Ealing Hospital's maternity and children wards now closed as of today. Total chaos as patients not fully informed and even staff's job plans still not finalised.

Mockery going on. While maternity is closed, gynaecology service stays. Few patients, loads of consultants and staff, more locums to look after fewer and fewer patients.
If the idea was cost cutting, the spending is same as other than midwives, other consultants and staff stays at Ealing, enjoying perfect work-life balance. Less work, more locuums.

As in the mid 2000's when we gave big rises to Consultants and GP's, telling the latter that they could 'opt out' of out-of-hours-coverage, and 90% did, also "enjoying perfect work-life balance" across the whole country.

I suspect the Ealing Hospital microcosm has a bigger story re the services 'slice and splice' you mention, but I guess we'd have to look elsewhere for balance.