Crispin Blunt

Conservative Party | Reigate

East Surrey Hospital Story Moves from Disaster to Farce

Crispin Blunt MP attacks yet more political interference

Today Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, announced that she was putting a financial turnaround team into the Surrey and Sussex NHS Healthcare Trust, which runs East Surrey and Crawley hospitals. Following years of political interference and delay, combined with the difficulty of providing public services in the South East, this Trust is the most indebted in the country – the debt is anticipated to be nearly £100 million, over half its annual turnover. It is reported that these financial turnaround teams will charge the hospital £2,500 a day for the benefit of their advice. Crispin Blunt commented:

‘Such incompetence would be hilarious were the consequences of all this political interference not going to be at the cost of local people’s healthcare.’

A year ago the Government sacked the then Chief Executive and all the non-executive directors of the hospital because the Trust was failing financially; they brought in Quo Health and Anthony McKeever, “Mac the Knife”, in order to place the Trust on an even financial footing. Quo Health was handpicked to address the Trust’s problems and chose to blame the then Chief Executive, Ken Cunningham, who had himself been handpicked to run the Trust in 2000. The current Chief Executive, Gary Walker, was appointed from Quo Health a few months ago and yet the Government is now sending in another team of management consultants only a year later. Crispin Blunt went on to say:

‘It beggars belief that the Secretary of State for Health has still not got the message that responsibility for this mess does not lie with whoever has the difficult burden of managing the Trust but with the Government for its political interference and with the Government for the relative under-funding of public services in the South East. Local health services are being expected to deliver increasingly impossible health performance targets.

‘I understand that the medical consultants are in a state of despair at seeing yet more funds go to management and financial consultants. This hospital has an unhappy history of direct political interference going back to 1999. The solution is for the Government to write off the Trust’s debt, which is a direct consequence of their own party political machinations in the interests of the Labour Party in Crawley. The Government should then get out of the management’s way, who I am certain would be able to provide hospital care much more effectively and efficiently without incessant political interference’