Linda Riordan: End the silence on our hospital’s future

The hospital serves communities across Calderdale, and right across to the Lancashire border to the west. It is estimated to have a catchment area of nearly 200,000 people – some as
many as 30 miles away. We are talking 
not about a small, rural hospital, but a major health centre in the heart
of an urban area. Why does that
matter? It matters simply because it underlines the importance of the
hospital services, including A&E, 
to thousands and thousands of 
my constituents.

The hospital is at the heart of local health services and needs. That is a reason to invest in health services in Halifax, not to cut them; to keep wards open, not close them; to protect A&E, not put it on a life support machine, with its future clouded in doubt with Ministers and the clinical commissioning group playing for time to deal with the issue post the General Election in 2015.

Questions are dodged, not discussed. Information is wrapped in secrecy and the people of Halifax and Calderdale are, it would appear, treated with contempt on this issue. This is their hospital. These are their health services. They deserve some answers.

That is the brief history. Where are things at today? Well, frankly, it is
all a bit of a mess. At its heart are the inherent contradictions in the Government’s approach to health policy across the country generally, and in Halifax specifically. Let us take a
look at some of them. The Government say the funding of hospitals is not a problem. Why then is there a funding shortfall in Halifax of potentially
 £50m?

We all know that the Government’s desire to cut A&Es like the one in Halifax is to save money. It is nothing to do with improving patient care.

If there is a funding problem, why do the Government claim to have protected health spending? Both cannot be correct. I say today that what Health Ministers are being told in Whitehall offices and what is happening on the ground in places like Halifax are miles apart. Ministers urgently need a reality check if they think that closing Halifax’s A&E will not put lives at risk.

The facts speak for themselves. This a hospital that only opened in 2000. 
It is A&E unit that treats thousands of people every year and a hospital that serves people within a 30-mile-plus radius.

We are already reading about a winter crisis in A&E — there was a major one last weekend—and what is the Government’s answer? To close them down. We cannot deal with one crisis by causing another. The way to deal with the A&E issue is to invest in the service, reassure people about its future and not put lives at risk.

There needs to be proper engagement. What are the plans? What is the impact likely to be? People need to be told straight what is taking place. The lack of information over the last few weeks and months has been almost as bad as the decision to axe the A&E in the first place.

Let us not pretend that an A&E will exist in some form or another post-2015. 
There either is an A&E or there is not. The time has come for the Government to come clean on their plans; they should set them out, so we can have a proper consultation and a proper debate. This time, however, the people of Halifax need listening to.

The time has come to say “enough is enough”. The facts are clear that 
without an A&E in Halifax lives will be put at risk. These unnecessary cuts to front-line services will be a body blow to all ages and all sections of the local community. That is why people have been taking to the streets to protest at these proposals. That is why across the whole spectrum of community opinion, 
there has been a united voice of “Save 
our A&E”.

Linda Riordan is the Labour MP for Halifax who spoke in a House of Commons debate on the NHS. This is an edited version.