Clause 22
Greater London Authority Bill
2:15 pm
Siobhain McDonagh (PPS (Rt Hon John Reid, Secretary of State), Home Office; Mitcham and Morden, Labour)
I welcome the clause, which allows the Mayor responsibility to look at health inequalities across London. I fear that the way in which the NHS is currently organised is deficient in taking into account all areas within London and in appreciating the effect that something done in one primary care trust might have on a hospital in another.
I am saddened and disappointed that the powers given in the clause are not larger. I should be grateful if the Minister would consider whether in future the Mayor might also have the right to be consulted on any hospital reconfiguration project that occurs in the London area. Areas of health inequality within a primary care trust—generally a combination of five or six constituencies—can often be quite small, and the people who live there are often not represented on any health boards, be they those of the primary care trusts or of the hospitals. They need a voice and need to be listened to; the Mayor can provide that function, as he can for any plan to close a hospital in the London area, which has an immediate impact on neighbouring hospitals.
In my own area, consideration is being given to whether a critical care hospital should be placed on the current St. Helier site—which I stress is not in my constituency, but in that of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, but serves half of my constituency. The possible movement of that hospital, even only a few miles away, will have a drastic impact on the ability of St. George’s in Tooting, the Mayday in Croydon and Kingston hospital to function.