Dear All, I just wanted to send out some notes with the salient points of this evenings Save

Our Hospitals campaign meeting at Hammersmith Town Hall that included members of the Save Hammersmith & Fulham Hospitals campaign. Local politicians attending who spoke were: Marcus Ginn, newly elevated Cabinet Member for Community Care who called the meeting, Andy Slaughter MP, Nick Botterill, Council Leader, Stephen Cowan, leader of Council Opposition, Greg Smith Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Residents Services, Rory Vaughn, Shadow cabinet member for Health and Adult Services (also on Health Select Committee), and Cllr Caroline Needham Shadow Cabinet member for Education and Childrens Services. Cllr Ginn kicked off stressing the need establish whether the proposed NHS LNW changes are for clinical and not financial reasons and that any changes shouldnt bring any clinical disadvantages to local residents. Cllr Botterill went through the Agenda: Why are we against the closures? = Dangerous travel times, Pressure on remaining hospitals, Doctors are concerned, Stroke unit move puts lives at risk, Charing Cross up for sale?, Financial mismanagement (not good value for money), Bureaucrats are not listening, and a Growing population with census showing that there are 17,000 more people in H&F (up 10% on 2001). He then went through the story so far from the beginning of the Councils campaign on June 22, which has involved: A full council unanimously voting to oppose the downgrading of local hospitals which led to this bi-partisan campaign; A petition which thus far has gathered 4,216 signatures to Save Charing Cross and 841 to Save Hammersmith with extra signatures coming from hard copy paper petitions; Two protests, one at each of the hospitals (there will be more in the coming months); Social media using Twitter and Facebook with the SaveCharingCross page and SaveHammersmith pages (96 people like SCC, 38 like SH); Residents sending their Save Our Hospitals postcards to their GPs; Community outreach and contacts; Posters; 60 personal stories from people whose lives have been saved thanks to the A&E units at both hospitals or at CC hyper-acute stroke unit; And finally the appointment tomorrow by the Housing, Health and Adult Social Care Select Committee of health expert, Paul Rideout (former director at Primary Care Trust), to scrutinise the NHS plans and the business case for closing the hospital units. Please note that there will be a Health Select Committee meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7pm at Hammersmith Town Hall where the NHS will talk and be scrutinised about the proposals

Andy Slaughter spoke about the debate last week in parliament attended by 10 London MPs. He stressed the need for greater communication and his belief that the campaign should be community led like the Charing Cross campaign in the 1990s and the current Ealing campaign, and not a bureaucracy-sponsored one. He also mentioned the possibility of a conflict of interest if it continued down that path. He emphasised that it will be a long, arduous campaign because the Health Service wont pay attention to all the opposition to the plans. The campaign will, in effect, start in January, when the NHS reach their conclusions based on the consultation, but there is a great need to raise awareness now and the community must start lobbying ministers. Cllr Ginn agreed that more needs to be done with the community and more petitioners and petitioning are required. Cllr Cowan stressed that its essential to fully understand the arguments in order to put in a strong counter-argument. He reminded everyone that the NHS had told him a year ago that they had begun discussing the proposals, when in fact the arguments were being prepared and gestating for two years. He pointed out how having specialist A & E units saves lives while combining doctors into one expert site will lead to array of problems and how they hadnt conducted any assessment or risk analysis of journey times to the more central hospitals compared with our local ones. Finally he reiterated the need for an evidence based argument and concluded saying that there is only one big issue and thats the 1.8 billion the NHS claims it needs to save. Cllr. Vaughn, who sits on the Borough Health Select Committee and also across NW London regarding the changes, said that there is great value and importance in the community giving personal evidence and testimony until the decision is made. Facts are needed to convince Govt. ministers that we need these services.

Campaigners spoke about the need for a single petition for both hospitals and not two separate ones which would compromise the campaign for the smaller of the two (i.e. Hammersmith). We also stressed the need for the community to lead the campaign and work with the other boroughs facing the changes. A campaigner stated that there are many health services in West London, not just Charing Cross and Hammersmith, so we need to look at the campaign holistically. Many people attending made remarks to reinforce this point. A resident spoke about the business case for the changes and the discrepancies between the preconsultation document (890 pages) and the much shorter one available to the general public. He said a lot can be challenged, for example with the calculation of the number of beds needed to be axed in the pre-consultation document versus the extra number that Chelsea & Westminster would need to find based on the shorter consultation document. He emphasised the need to effectively communicate the key points to the public so that the NHSs arguments can be attacked. The campaign needs to distill the consultation into 2 pages for the public domain. N.B. We were reminded that in January the Vascular and Orthopedic services will be moved from CC to St Marys Cllr Vaughn pointed out that Joint Committee for PCT will ignore the consultation which explains why th theyve organised an event at Hammersmith Town Hall on July 28 (the day the borough will be gridlocked by the Olympic cycle race!). Another public scrutiny event is being proposed for September th 18 at the Town Hall which will need to be attended by as many people as possible. A Doctor (and NHS consultant) pointed out, in detail, that the loss of an A&E service inevitably leads to the loss of the entire hospital because of the knock on effect it has and the way in which acute and non acute services are organised, commissioned and paid for. Cllr. Needham spoke for the worst affected people who couldnt be present at the meeting (or other meetings) but would want to have their voice heard. These are people with mental health issues, the vulnerable and disenfranchised. There was a consensus among those present that the two campaigns can and must work together as best they can, so there needs to be effort helping with liaising so that more joint meetings can be held, protests can be staged, and greater awareness raised, to help reinforce the unified stance. There was also agreement that ultimately the two petitions (Save Hammersmith & Fulham Hospitals and Save Our Hospitals) should be combined and submitted to minsters and all key decision makers in the process. If anyone would like to let the Council know their ideas they can e-mail savecharingcross@lbhf.gov.uk or savehammersmith@lbhf.gov.uk Again, please note that there will be a Health Select Committee meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7pm at Hammersmith Town Hall where the NHS will talk and be scrutinised about the proposals

Best and God bless, Carlo