Haringey Lib Dems are campaigning against health cuts imposed on the borough’s local Primary Care Trust as a result of the national NHS cash crisis. Party representatives will be joining campaigners at today’s crucial Primary Care Trust board meeting, where cuts are being planned.

The campaigners are furious over the closure of local Health Clinics, the withdrawal of community health services including visiting nurses to schools and the sale of part of the site of Hornsey Central Hospital for private redevelopment.

The new Lib Dem spokesperson on Health and Social Care, Cllr Richard Wilson comments:

“Patients and health workers across Haringey feel betrayed by the Government’s chaotic boom and bust approach to health funding. For years we have been told about new money going into the NHS, but now local health bosses have been told to cut back £11 million from this year’s budget. Frontline services for the ill and vulnerable will inevitably be damaged.The Haringey Labour Party needs to explain to residents and care staff why local health funding is in such mess.

“Attempts to dress up these cuts as restructuring are unbelievable. The Lib Dems have long argued for more preventative and community health services so that more people can be treated at home rather than in hospital. However, the motivation for these cuts is clearly not a desire to improve services, but a desperate attempt to deal with the current funding crisis.”

Commenting on Hornsey Hospital, Crouch End Councillor David Winskill adds:

“The first casualty of the funding crisis has been the plans to invest in Hornsey Hospital.Residents in the west of the Borough are angry that promises to keep health services in the hospital are being watered down. This land was bought by the great-grandparents of the residents of the borough, and was intended to be used for public health purposes. It is an absolute scandal that the land might be sold off for private use – once it is gone, it is gone forever.”

Notes:

Haringey PCT will be finalising plans to deal with an £11 million cut in its 2006/07 budget, which will hit every aspect of local health services. Despite cutting back on almost all its investment plans, the Trust is still left with £4m of savings to find from current services this year.

Haringey PCT’s strategic financial plan – which will be discussed at the board meeting – states that the PCT had initially been allocated an increase of £27 million for 2006/07, but since January this has been slashed back to £16 million, an unexpected cut of £11 million.