Downing Street Says » Hospital cutbacks

» Friday, September 15, 2006

Hospital cutbacks

Asked if the Prime Minister thought it was right for the Party Chair and other political advisers to be involved in discussions about hospital cutbacks, the PMOS replied that the Department of Health this morning had made it clear that there was nothing secret about this at all. Patricia Hewitt had made a point of meeting MPs from all parties to discuss local issues, including proposals for change. It was entirely appropriate, because we had said, and the Chief Executive had made it clear the other day, that re-configuration would be done with local consultations. Therefore, obviously, MPs were part of that process, as they needed to be kept informed about the issues that could affect their constituents. Hazel Blears, as Chair of the party was perfectly entitled to be kept informed of progress on decisions like this, just as she was in other matters too. Therefore, this was part of the normal consultation process.

Asked if we could give an assurance that there was absolutely no political motivation behind any of the decisions that were made in terms of this re-organisation, the PMOS said that we could, as this was part of a rational analysis of what services were needed at a local level. The PMOS said, although this could quite often become short-handed when talking about cuts, this was not about cuts. Rather, it was about change to make services more accessible to local people because that was what they wanted. It was also to recognise that because of new technology, it was now possible to make local services more accessible to local people. That had knock-on effects for the work loads of some hospitals. That was the rationale behind it, and that was what drove these changes. It was to make them both more accessible and more effective.

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