Health bosses approve 'biggest ever NHS cuts'

The accident and emergency departments at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals will be replaced by "urgent care centres" following day-long deliberations by the board of NHS North West London.

As a result those with life-threatening illnesses will have to be seen elsewhere as the UCCs do not have the facilities to treat things like heart attacks and strokes.

The decision is identical to the preferred "option A" in last June's Shaping a Healthier Future consultation.

Campaigners have warned there will be no A&E in the London boroughs of Hammersmith, Ealing or Brent.

Separate plans buried in the document also earmark the sell-off of the Charing Cross Hospital site for private development with the loss of all its 500 beds.

The "secret" move would leave an area "the size of a gym" to treat patients including the proposed UCC at the site, campaigners told the Star.

They said the ironically titled Shaping A Healthier Future plans represent "the biggest ever NHS cuts programme."

Hammersmith MP Andy Slaughter, who attended the meeting, said he "questioned the bureaucrats closing my local hospital" where they confirmed that Charing Cross will be 3 per cent its current size.

Last week Mr Slaughter attacked Hammersmith & Fulham Council for launching "a cynical publicity campaign" claiming Charing Cross hospital had been "saved."

Save Our Hospitals spokesman Mark Honigsbaum said: "Now we know the truth. Charing Cross will be closed and replaced by a community care clinic with no A&E, no intensive care unit and no acute stroke services.

"This is a poor deal that potentially puts residents' lives at risk."

The council and NHS NW London failed to respond to requests for comment at the time of going to press.