GPs face a billion pound budget gap and have to make savings
Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall has pledged to fight to save Ealing Hospital after much rumoured plans that it was ear-marked for closure surfaced again this week.
Reports in the press told how pathfinder GP consortia in NW London were informed by NHS managers that they would inherit a £1bn budget gap by 2014.
Laurence Buckman, chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee said: "Saving a billion pounds in one area means closing down a hospital. There's no other way to do it. And doctors will be forced to close them. That's not what GPs want to do … It's not what MPs want them to do either."
Commenting on these latest reports and rumours that Ealing could be the one facing the axe Virendra Sharma MP said:
“The Tory led government have broken their promise to increase spending on the NHS and NW London GPs now face a £1bn budget gap by 2014 and the possible closure of a hospital. The Prime Minister denied that there would be a top down re-organisation of the NHS and that Ealing Hospital would be in danger of closure but this is exactly what is happening.
''The Tory led government are cynically trying to close Ealing Hospital but trying to avoid the blame by passing the decisions to local GPs. I will do everything I can to protect Ealing Hospital and the acute services it delivers to local people and make sure everyone understands it is the Tory led government that is behind these threats to our hospital.”
A spokesman for North-west London healthcare said no measures to close hospitals were contemplated "right now", but refused to rule them out in the future.
3 February 2011
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