Closing Ealing Hospital children's A&E ward at 'has put lives at risk'

Shake-up: The children's unit at the west London hospital closed yesterday
PA
Tom Powell1 July 2016

Lives are at risk following the closure of a children’s accident and emergency unit and ward at a west London hospital, campaigners warned today.

Young people brought in by their parents to Ealing Hospital now face being transferred up to 10 miles to a different hospital after the services were closed yesterday under the Ealing Care and Commission Group (CCG) initiative. Ealing council and residents have fought a four-year campaign to save the emergency department and attached Charlie Chaplin ward, which cares for 10 to 12 children at one time.

Council leader Julian Bell said: “Children will now have to travel much further distances to get to A&E. These delays and transfers can cost lives.

“It’s a sad day for Ealing but we will keep up the fight.” Residents and councillors joined a protest yesterday outside the hospital, in Uxbridge Road, Southall, calling on NHS bosses to reverse the closures.

The NHS is making the cuts as part of a broader restructuring of care services across north-west London, with money being invested into other children’s A&E departments.

Oliver New, chairman of campaign group Ealing Save Our NHS, warned that lives were being “put at risk” in order to meet NHS targets. He said: “We are in no doubt that children will be put at risk because of the closure of the A&E service. There are lots of children in Southall due to the high birth rate and these people will be adversely affected.”

The 24/7 urgent care centre at Ealing Hospital will still treat children.

However, those needing an overnight stay or further specialist treatment will be taken by hospital transfer service to one of five other north-west London hospitals, including Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, 10 miles away.

The mother of one regular patient has filed a judicial claim in the High Court of Justice to stop the closure.

Her solicitor, Rheian Davies of local firm DH Law, said: “When children’s wards are shut down emergency services are meant to be enhanced.

“In our view Ealing CCG has failed to shore up A&E services to the required level.”

An independent commission, chaired by leading barrister Michael Mansfield QC, was also highly critical of the NHS’s Shaping a Healthier Future programme which is cutting hospital services in the region.

But Ealing CCG, which also closed the hospital’s maternity unit last year, defended the changes.

A spokeswoman for the NHS said: “These changes are about improving children’s care across the whole of north west London, by providing better access to more specialist senior doctors during the day and night, seven days a week.

“If a child arrives at Ealing needing more specialist care than the urgent care centre can provide, doctors will assess and stabilise the child.

“They will then be transferred to a nearby hospital, which will have better access to more specialist senior doctors during the day and night.”

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