We have a new poster available for download and popping in your window, on your car’s back shelf, printing on vinyl and using to cover an umbrella… Whittington Poster

Jeremy Corbyn’s Early Day Motion (EDM 87) has so far been signed by only 19 MPs. If your MP hasn’t signed it yet please ask them to! You can get find you MP and send them an email directly from  Theyworkforyou.com.

Early Day Motion

EDM 87 WHITTINGTON HOSPITAL 18.11.2009 Corbyn, Jeremy 19 signatures

Abbott, Diane         Clark, Katy         Cohen, Harry
Cryer, Ann         Dobson, Frank         Featherstone, Lynne
Gerrard, Neil         Hoey, Kate         Hopkins, Kelvin
Illsley, Eric         Jackson, Glenda         Jenkins, Brian
McDonnell, John         Meale, Alan         Simpson, Alan
Thornberry, Emily         Wareing, Robert N         Wyatt, Derek

That this House recognises the Whittington Hospital is a valuable asset to healthcare in North London and has recently undergone a major rebuilding programme; notes that the Whittington receives into its accident and emergency department alone approximately 80,000 patients annually and offers accessible services including maternity, neo-natal, cancer, day surgery and more; is very concerned to hear ongoing talk of a threat to or merger of any of the Whittington’s major services with the Royal Free Hospital, thereby reducing the viability of the Whittington’s continued existence as a separate institution, and of its services to local people in Islington, Haringey and Camden; and calls upon NHS London to ensure the continued existence of the Whittington Hospital inclusive of its major services.

The Early Day Motion itself is online here: EDM 87.

We have the advantage that there is an election coming. Unfortunately all the major parties have threatened to slash public sector spending. We have to remind them who pays who’s wages and convince them that healthcare, along with other public services, is more important than the Trident replacement.

Islington NHS Statistics

We have received a copy of Islngton NHS’s 2009 report ‘Health Facts For Islington’ which makes for interesting reading. It’s on site here: Health in Islington – The Facts.

Remember to come along to the meeting on Monday where we will be discussing the next steps of the campaign and, if it’s your sort of thing, to join our Facebook group and follow us on Twitter (links are on the right of this page.)

Transport disruption on Saturday

There are disruptions to public transport on Saturday which, while a pain, serve to highlight one of the many reasons we need to keep an A&E at the Whittington.

This is from Zozi Goodman, DWHC Joint-chair:

Hi everyone, As the big day of the march is dawning thoughts are now turning to how to get to Highbury Corner, especially as the police are closing off half of Holloway Road for us to walk down. So here’s some info to help you plan your journey: Holloway Road is only closed going north ie from Highbury Corner to Archway.

Traffic will still be allowed on the other side of the road, but there are arrangements to close the road at some of the junctions with other roads. Archway Station is closed, as is the whole of the Victoria line, which is all planned engineering work. The Piccadilly line is however open as normal.

There are a lot of planned closures or part closures on the tube network generally, for more information here is the link to the TfL website: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/livetravelnews/realtime/by-date.aspx?offset=weekend

Buses are still running but some are being diverted. For a complete picture of each bus route, and for more information about which roads are closing when please click on this link: Traffic info for Coalition March on 27 Feb 2010 (.pdf)

Fingers crossed for the weather, see you on the march.

Zozi Joint Chair, Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition

Press Coverage

There’s an excellent piece about Saturday’s march in the  Tottenham & Woodgreen Advertiser.

CONCERNED residents are urged to turn out in force on Saturday to protest against plans to strip The Whittington Hospital of its accident and emergency department.

Thousands are expected to converge on Highbury Corner at noon to join health campaigners, political leaders and hospital staff in a mass march up Holloway Road towards the hospital in Highgate Hill.

One carriageway of the busy road will be closed for the marchers who will then gather for a rally outside The Whittington with speeches by campaigners including Wendy Savage of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign group.

Proposals for a rejig of services of hospitals and health services across Enfield, Barnet, Haringey, Islington and Camden have sparked fear and uncertainty, particularly that The Whittington’s treasured A&E department may be downgraded.

Services could be lost under four out of seven options as part of an NHS cost-cutting shake-up and plans are also afoot for a cost-cutting merger between The Whittington and the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. This is of particular concern to Haringey residents, who have no major hospital within their borders.

Shirley Franklin, joint chairwoman of the Defend The Whittington Hospital Coalition, urged everyone to take part in the demonstration. She said: “Nobody wants to lose the A&E and if you want to have your say, come on the march on Saturday. People are going to be there who have never been on a demonstration before – it has such a resonance for everybody.

“We’ve collected at least 10,000 signatures and they’re still coming in fast and furious. I’ve been gobsmacked with the level of support, which is just fantastic. I think people feel this is their chance to have their voices heard.”

You can read the rest of the article here: Walk the Walk for the Whittington

Political Support

It looks like we’re going to have  loads of political support on Saturday. There have been blog posts popping up throughout the day. Some are a tad too clearly electioneering, but that’s understandable with an election looming and all raise the profile of the campaign. Apologies to anyone I’ve missed: I’m getting these from the Twitter topic Whittington A&E so if you’re an MP/councillor/candidate and would like your blog to be mentioned in these updates make sure you tweet it too!

Karen Jennings (Labour): Whittington A&E protests shift up a gear.

Lynne Featherstone (Liberal Democrat): Whittington A&E: LibDems would give Power to the People.

David Lammy (Labour): Join us on a march to save the Whittington Hospital.

Jeremy Corbyn spoke about the Whittington in Parliament yesterday and has released this press release: PressWhittingtonFeb2010 (.pdf, originally received as .doc)

“NCL Vision

To improve the health of our population over the next five years compared with Londoners as a whole. In particular, we will improve health outcomes by addressing health inequalities within our population, focusing on our most deprived communities.”

As a world class commissioner of healthcare, our population will have access to more services closer to home and the highest quality hospital services.

http://dwhc.org.uk/info/haringey-links-away-day-8-feb-2010/

This is from what is probably the most worrying slide:

Proposed clinical model for acute care

Two major acute hospital sites, one in the north and one in the south

A multi-specialist acute provider for highly specialist and tertiary services

Rationalisation of specialist services (e.g. cardiac, neurosurgery) across RFH and UCLH and development of networked services for surrounding areas

Maximum of two local hospitals – three variants under consideration

Maximum of three in-patient paediatric sites which should be co-located with a major acute site or multi specialist acute.

Four obstetric units each catering for 6,000 births with level 2 NICU either co-located with a major acute, a medical and surgical emergency hospital or a multi specialist acute

No new stand alone midwifery led birthing units until further consideration

Click here for the song: Whittington Song.

The Whittington Song, by Dave Plummer and Andria Britton.

Don’t make a casualty of our A&E,
Don’t try to fit us all in to the Royal Free,
Not saying nothing’s wrong with the Homerton,
But we need an A&E at the Whittington.

Don’t want the UCH when my leg, it breaks,
‘Coz getting there from Archway is a real headache,
If I break my arm I can’t go to Chase Farm,
Closing the Whittington will only do more harm.

You say the NHS is safely in your hands,
But the Foundations seem to be on shifting sands,
Funding ID Cards and Trident missiles is fine,
While our healthcare plummets headlong into steep decline.

Don’t make a casualty of our A&E,
Don’t try to fit us all in to the Royal Free,
Not saying nothing’s wrong with the Homerton,
But we need an A&E at the Whittington.

What would Bevan say if he were here today,
We’re trashing his great plan, throwing it all away,
While mothers with prams are stuck in traffic jams,
All because the NHS has a business plan.

When we need urgent care we hoped that you’d be there,
But you closed at eight o’clock: it’s gone eleven out here,
It’s an emergency. That’s the point you see,
Travelling extra miles could be the death of me.

Don’t make a casualty of our A&E,
Don’t try to fit us all in to the Royal Free,
Not saying nothing’s wrong with the Homerton,
But we need an A&E at the Whittington.

Our public health is envied by the world,
We’ve got something great, it shouldn’t be disturbed,
Forget about targets and action plans,
The health of a nation is in their hands.

Please don’t sell health off to the pigs at the trough,
Making money out of every rash, outbreak and cough,
Don’t go for money men, it’s our lives in the end,
Begone the shareholders and their dividends.

Don’t make a casualty of our A&E,
Don’t try to fit us all in to the Royal Free,
Not saying nothing’s wrong with the Homerton,
But we need an A&E at the Whittington.

Don’t make a casualty of our A&E,
Don’t try to fit us all in to the Royal Free,
Not saying nothing’s wrong with the Homerton,
But we need an A&E at the Whittington.

Deliberately not copyrighted: spread it around a bit!

We now have the NHS official proposals for North Central London area. The key pages are pages 79-82 with the ‘7 scenarios’.

Its clearly an attack on the services at all North London’s hospitals, and we have to stick together and resist any ‘divide and rule’ tactics.

All of the scenarios seem to downgrade most of the Hospitals with only one scenario maintaining any of the 6 hospitals as a District General Hospital (Scenario 1 – for Barnet and North Middx).

Re: Whittington specifically:

– All ‘scenarios’ include an ‘Urgent Care Centre’.

– 3 scenarios include full A&E retained, 2 scenarios retain just 16hrs A&E, 2 scenarios have no A&E.

It needs checking carefully… but the battle is well and truly on.

North Central London NHS Strategy Plan 2010 – 2014: Options document

– by Rachel Tyndall, NHS North Central London

Click here to download (.pdf, 2.27 mb)

Letter to press 15 January 2010(.pdf)