17/04/00

Davey to raise school nurses campaign in special Commons debate

Kingston & Surbiton MP, Edward Davey, has been granted a special adjournment debate in the House of Commons on Thursday 20th April to highlight the problems faced by local school nurses.

Since the recent release of the local Health Authority's report on the future of the service, Edward has received reports that the service is under severe strain. The Borough's schools were left with only four nurses between them which, led to the nursing team to resort to basic crisis management.

Commenting on the current crisis, Edward Davey MP said;

"The situation here in Kingston makes a mockery of warm words from Ministers about preventative health policies. Overworked staff have precious little time to fulfil all of their current objectives let alone new targets.

New staffing structure proposals put forward by the pressurised nurses during the review was a bare minimum. Yet many remain worried about further cuts in the future.

The Health Authority's own review suggested replacing skilled nurses with less qualified staff.

If things continue as they are there will not be a service to protect in a couple of years, as the remaining few staff leave to find far better resourced services in neighbouring Boroughs.

In my Commons debate this week I want to make sure Ministers recognise this fact and work with the local health authority to ensure that children's long term health in our Borough is not put in danger."

Since the report was issued, the Chessington part of the Borough has had to be ignored as the over stretched staff concentrate on responding to emergency child protection cases and carrying out their annual immunisation programme.

This has meant that the usual hearing and vision tests and drop in clinics had to be temporarily suspended.