Hospital campaigners today accused Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for health, of running scared from scrutiny after he has refused to meet with local politicians over the controversial plans to close 4 A&Es in north west London.
Mr Hunt refused to attend a meeting this evening to discuss the closures, which is the biggest programme of closures in the history of the NHS, with local politicians at the House of Commons. This is despite giving a commitment to Virendra Sharma MP in the House of Commons that he would meet with West London MPs to discuss the changes. No health minister attended the meeting and the department refused to commit to meeting the group of MPs in the future.
Ealing council’s Labour Leader and hospital campaigner Cllr Julian Bell said:
“It is disgraceful that the Tories have pushed through this closure and are now washing their hands of it. Local Tories have tried to tell us that Jeremy Hunt is the man who will save our hospitals. If that is the case why won’t he meet with us to discuss them? The truth is that this tory-led government are pushing through a huge programme of closures and trying to pass the buck onto NHS.
The reason he won’t see us is because we’ve seen through his spin. The A&Es haven’t been saved; they are being closed and replaced with urgent care centres.”
