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Playing politics with the future of stroke unit
• I AM saddened and shocked by the failure of the Liberal Democrats to join all the other political parties on Camden Council to stand up for local residents by defending the acute stroke unit at the Royal Free.
It is threatened with a downgrade, so we will only have one acute stroke centre in the borough not two.
Councillor Kirsty Roberts and I led a coalition of Green, Labour and Conservative councillors to pass a motion in June’s full council to save the stroke unit. The Liberal Democrats tried to vote it down but, thankfully, the combined votes of the other three parties won the day.
This removal of the acute unit will mean patients must go instead to University College Hospital, increasing journey times for critical stroke patients from areas such as Hampstead, Belsize Park, Swiss Cottage and West Hampstead.
Moreover, the Royal Free’s acute stroke unit is rated the second best in the country (out of 216) and so destroying its work is crazy.
Lib Dem councillors’ remarks on this topic have been grossly misleading.
In the council chamber respected senior Labour Cllr Pat Callaghan and Conservative Cllr Martin Davies both had to take the unusual step of pointing out numerous inaccuracies in Lib Dem Cllr David Abrahams’s remarks at that meeting, for instance concerning the Royal Free’s own board paper of April 23 2009.
The paper says of the stroke unit: “it is extremely problematic to PCTs in London that the service at the Royal Free, which is unique in the UK, should be a potential casualty of this consultation... the service is novel and highly effective and could be a future model for every local hospital.”
That is, the stroke unit’s approach should be replicated across the country not shut down.
The unit’s work is groundbreaking. It provides quick access to acute stroke care to residents in the north of the borough.
That is why both staff and managers at the Royal Free have joined hundreds of other local residents in signing my petition to save the unit in its current form. That is also why Camden’s Green, Labour and Conservative councillors joined us in publicly standing up for the local stroke unit. It is deeply disappointing and saddening that Camden’s Lib Dems have voted to undermine the Royal Free’s acute stroke unit, and then mount a personalised attack on their political opponents. They should leave juvenile student union party politics at home.
CLLR CHRIS PHILIP
Conservative Candidate for Hampstead & Kilburn
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