I will literally fight them tooth and nail if they try and close or even reduce our emergency A & E services at the Whittington – which they (NHS London and the Government) clearly wish to do.

If you read the four options on the first letter sent out by Rachel Tyndall, CEO for North London Central NHS which was sent to all relevant  hospital CEOs and Medical Directors but not dated, you can see how stark and clear the message is about the future of A & E at the Whittington:

From the letter:

This provided 4 possible models for North Central London, namely:

 a)      Barnet and North Middlesex designated Major Acutes, Royal Free designated a major acute with specialist services, UCLH designated a specialist provider, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 b)      Barnet and North Middlesex designated Major Acutes, UCLH designated a major acute with specialist services, Royal Free designated a specialist provider, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 c)       designated a Major Acute, UCLH and Royal Free designated major acutes with specialist services, North  designated a local hospital with an A&E and medical take, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

 d)      North Middlesex designated a Major Acute, UCLH and Royal Free designated major acutes with specialist services, Barnet designated a local hospital with an A&E and medical take, Whittington designated a local hospital but with no emergency take and Chase Farm congruent with the BEH clinical strategy

As you can see – all four options kill off A & E at the Whittington. The position put out by Rachel Tyndall in her letter was crystal clear – that the Whittington would loose its A&E, and therefore its ITU, and acute medical and surgical services.

This position now, rather abruptly, appears to have changed with a hasty and strange press statement put out on 13th November to the effect that the letter had “led to some confusion”. No it hadn’t – it was perfectly clear – no emergency service at the Whittington. 

So – whilst they try and back-peddle to offset any mounting campaign to save our vital A & E at the Whittington – let me just make quite clear that I do not trust the Trust. They want to close our A &E. They don’t appear to understand that the 240 people a day who attend A & E are in great need and moreover could not make it to the Royal Free where the proposed services would have gone. The transport and access to the Royal Free for local people here in the West of Haringey is too dreadful for words. Moreover – local people want, need, deserve and have paid for an A & E here at the Whittington.

When will this dreadful Government and these dreadful, NHS beaurocrats, who seem only to rearrange and restructure, begin to understand what people want and need from their local health services.

Merging some services between the Whittington and the Royal Free is one thing – denying local people a local, 24 hour A & E and the services to go with it is another.

The consultation NHS North London claim to have done was a sham – a couple of weeks in August basically – hardly exhaustive given the dramatic nature of the proposed changes.

They may draw in their claws for now – but the letter makes quite clear where NHS and the Government want to go with their plans. No amount of weasel words will be able to deny their direction of travel.

The battle lines are drawn!