Whittington A&E - campaigners celebrate victory as vital unit remains open

Published: 6 May, 2010
by TOM FOOT

IT was supposed to be a protest, but it felt more like a party. Wearing fancy dress outfits and holding green balloons, triumphant campaigners gathered outside Whittington Hospital to celebrate victory in the battle to save its emergency services from closure.
The mood on Thursday had changed following the New Journal’s exclusive front-page story that Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham had ordered a “complete halt” to a controversial review threatening the Highgate hospital.
Mr Burnham had contacted our newsdesk the previous evening to say: “As far as I’ve seen there is no clinical evidence or clinical support for any kind of downgrading or closure. It is inconceivable that Labour would support the closing or downgrading of the Whittington A&E or its maternity service.”

The hospital’s future sparked a massive response from members of the public and was at the centre of one of the biggest campaigns run by the New Journal and its sister title, the Islington Tribune.
It led to a protest march involving thousands of people opposed to the changes in February.
Mr Burnham’s words were matched during passionate speeches from Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, and his Lib Dem counterpart Norman Lamb.
Mr Lansley, in an interview with the New Journal, said he would scrap the North Central London sector trust, the health quango behind the proposed changes to the Whittington.
Mr Lamb said he would go one step further by sacking all the NHS bosses and replacing them with elected health representatives – bringing greater democracy to the NHS.

Following a Freedom of Information Act request, the New Journal has discovered that more than 60 managers have been working full-time on the controversial review since July with an annual budget of £2.3million – it means £1.9m has been spent on a project that now looks certain to be scrapped.
Despite protests from security guards who came out to confront the rally with orders from the hospital’s top brass, around 250 people stood outside the Whittington to hear speeches and celebrate victory.
Everybody present was acutely aware that none of it could have been achieved without the work of the Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition (DWHC) – a non-partisan group formed to bring a unified campaign to save the Whittington.
Shirley Franklin, co-chair of the DWHC, said: “This is a fantastic victory, and is testimony to the strength of the opposition we have built.
“We built a march that put 5,000 people on the streets in a demonstration against the closure earlier this year, and have held a very successful day of action today.

“But we cannot simply sit back and congratulate ourselves. We know that all the main parties that might form a future government are committed to major cuts in public spending, so we must keep up our guard.”
Labour MPs Emily Thornberry, Jeremy Corbyn and the universities minister David Lammy have been working behind the scenes to finally bring Mr Burnham off the bench.
Ms Thornberry said: “At last, we can say the Whittington A&E will not close.”
Mr Corbyn added: “We campaigned and we got the result we wanted. But we are not about to give up and go away. There are other NHS services to defend. We should turn this coalition into the NHS Accountability Campaign.”
Mr Lammy said: “The public have spoken, and they have spoken loudly. There is no way in hell this A&E will close. If they try again there will be a black man chained to the railings outside, and that man will be me.”
Lib Dem MP Lynne Featherstone, from the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, also spoke, claiming her efforts had forced the government to step back.

Some cynics have warned the statements of politicians, days before the general and local elections, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
But protesters insist this is a time when voters can demand public services should be at the top of the agenda and provides a forum to win guarantees from the country’s top decision-makers.
Any future government will now struggle to ignore the mountain of “clinical evidence” condemning A&E closures.
The British Medical Association and two watchdogs have published detailed independent reports warning the closure figures do not “stand up to scrutiny”.
The Whittington’s 100 consultants have also signed a joint letter condemning the proposals as “not in the best interests of patients”.
With clinical evidence and the weight of top-level politicians, hundreds of frontline staff at the hospital can surely now rest assured that the immediate threat to their jobs is over.
A spokesman for NCL said: “There are no plans to downgrade A&E or maternity at the Whittington. Any options for changes to services at the Whittington would have to have clinical backing and there would be a full public consultation before any changes were made.”