Helen Jones

Labour Party | Warrington North

S.O.S.  -  Save Our Services

As you may have read on the pages of Orbit News in recent weeks the North Cheshire NHS Trust are proposing changes in the way Warrington hospital operates.  In a document entitled ‘A vision for future services’ they set out their stall and were confident enough to proclaim that although incomplete it “ provides sufficient detail in setting out a proposed strategic direction”.

The document clearly states that their proposed strategic direction is to transfer services from Warrington to Halton hospital and to site five out of six proposed ‘centres of excellence’ at Halton.

When I challenged this the hospital management went into a spin in every sense of the word. 

Firstly,  they claimed that the document was insufficiently clear and open to interpretation.  I had,  it appeared,  misunderstood what a centre of excellence was.  I find this difficult to accept given that in their document they clearly define what one is.  They say the centres of excellence will “provide the concentration of clinical staff” and (in bold type no less) “will be the location for accessing expert opinion and specialist services”.

Secondly,  they informed me that they were re-writing their consultation document to make their proposals ‘clearer’.  In other words they have been rumbled so they are rewriting the document to try to hide the fact that services will be removed from Warrington.  I wrote to the Chief Executive asking him to assure me that the proposals to remove services from the town and to site all but one centre of excellence in Halton would be removed from the document.  The fact that he has not replied says it all.

Thirdly,  the hospital via their own ‘spin doctors,’   PR firm  M & M Associates,  issued a press release about the consultation.  It conveniently brushed over many of the proposals to transfer services from Warrington to Halton.  They confirmed Warrington would secure a heart centre (this was already in the pipeline) and that Halton would secure acute stroke services and renal dialysis services.  Notably there was no mention of the respiratory illness unit,  the cancer unit and the diabetes unit – all centres of excellence marked down for Halton.
Why a hospital needs a PR firm is an interesting question and how much money is diverted to pay them which could be used to treat patients is another which could legitimately be raised.

Finally,  they trumpeted the arrival of the new heart centre for Warrington in a press release.  That is indeed good news but they failed to tell the people of Warrington the full story.  Other specialisms are going and our town will be left with Cinderella services. 

People in Halton know the full story.   The details ran across three pages of the Widnes Weekly News (26.9.02),  including the front page,  highlighting the changes and improvements proposed for Halton hospital.  That paper believes Halton is in line for ‘an improved range of services’ and five centres of excellence.  It is interesting that the Hospital Trust are not going out of their way to dampen the story in Halton but are trying to lead us to believe we have got the wrong end of the stick in Warrington.

This is simply not good enough.  It is time to tell the hospital to ‘think again’.  So far the best the Chief Executive can come up with is to tell me that better transport systems could be put into operation so that Warrington people can get to Halton hospital.  In effect he is saying to cancer sufferers and those needing renal dialysis that he is moving your services out of town but he will try to ensure you can get a bus there for your treatment.  In my view that is outrageous and simply will not do.  Most of the population served by the Trust live in Warrington and our population is expanding whilst Halton’s is contracting.  We need services here so they are accessible to Warrington people.

It is time to stand up before it is too late.  The consultation is about to begin – we need to ensure that the proposals so damaging to our town are not even on the agenda.  To do that our voices need to be heard and in that regard I am starting the SAVE OUR SERVICES petition.  We need as many people to sign it as possible or to write to me or e-mail me.  Those representing Warrington need to stand up and be counted and I call on them to join me and force the hospital to think again.

Warrington North constituents can contact me to register their opposition to the hospital’s plans and to support the SAVE OUR SERVICES campaign by:

• writing to Gilbert Wakefield House,  67 Bewsey Street,  WA2 7JQ
• telephoning  01925 232 480
• faxing on  01925 232 239
• e-mail  jonesh@parliament.uk