Mixed Health Service

The scorecard for Kingston’s health service is mixed – huge successes side-by-side with too many “room for improvements”.

The good news is a major increase in investment since the days of Conservative health cuts. At Kingston Hospital, the new Accident and Emergency has at last seen a sustained reduction in waiting times. The latest building programme will soon mean the hospital has the best facilities ever. We’ve seen GP surgeries modernised or totally rebuilt. Only last week, I had the pleasure of opening the amazing Merritt Medical Centre in Chessington, serving 10,000 patients in a state-of-the-art building.

Yet it’s frustrating that real progress is accompanied by steps backward.

My immediate concern is the hospital’s budget. It’s not a new problem and goes back to John Major’s Government. But Labour said in 1997 that closing the Casualty Unit at Queen Mary’s Roehampton would solve it. It hasn’t. We’re now told decisions by Ministers on pay systems and consultant contracts have caused the £5 million blackhole.

Maybe. But if that means cutting frontline services and canceling operations, something is wrong. Especially with continuing staff shortages and remaining concerns on cleanliness.

Then there’s the threat to Epsom Hospital, the cutbacks in NHS dentistry and over-stretched services like maternity. It’s time Ministers admitted that in Kingston and indeed South West London we’re not getting our fair share of extra NHS cash, and acted.