Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition

Andrew Lansley Interview, 29th April 2010

Click here to watch an interview with Andrew Lansley outside the Whittington.
And see below for a transcript of this interview

Journalist:

“Can you give us a promise now that the Conservative Government will not shut down this A&E for the people of Islington and Camden?”

Andrew Lansley:

“Because I am gong to scrap NHS London’s flawed plan and give local people and local GPs the ability to commission the services they need and want, I can say that the Whittington Accident and Emergency Department, if I am Secretary of State, will be safe.”

“I have talked also to local campaigners and also, very importantly, I have talked to local GPs. I’ve talked to them about the services that they need for their patients. And all of that has given me great confidence that the A&E Department here is a service that we need. It’s a service which should stay, it’s a service which will be commissioned by local GPs to look after their patients.”

“I’m backing the NHS and our manifesto says that we will increase the NHS budget each year in real terms.”

“Of course, we want to use those resources more effectively, and actually the route to doing that is not shutting down emergency departments and imagining that services will suddenly appear in the community. It’s about designing the services properly using the Accident and Emergency Department.”

“Because all the evidence, including from the College of Emergency Medicine, who published it only yesterday, makes it clear that even if you were to look after all the patients who are appropriate to look after in the community you’d still have about 70,000 patients coming to the A&E Department here at the Whittington.”