Charing Cross: Details of cuts emerge

Andy Slaughter MP has managed to get some early details of what seems like a shriveled "A&E" service set to be left for Charing Cross Hospital as a result of the Government's partial u-turn last week. Here's what he said on Friday:

"Charing Cross will lose its world class stroke unit in about two years’ time.  There will be no emergency services left on the site: emergency surgery, the intensive treatment unit and acute beds will all be closed or merged into other London hospitals.

This means the A&E will be reduced to treating only minor injuries and infections – no different than the ‘urgent care centre’ proposed last year, which led to the Save Our Hospitals campaign being set up".

So hardly the A&E unit portrayed by the spin from both our Council, who support the cuts, and the Government who are implementing them. And in our own part of the borough Hammersmith Hospital is set to lose its A&E unit altogether, along with many other services. This in part of the borough where people already live on average 8 years less and where there are very severe health issues among both young and old.

I suspect this will be one of the defining issues at next May's local elections.