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Health Care in London

I want to tell a tale of two hospitals. Mitcham's Wilson hospital was endowed by a local benefactor, Sir Isaac Wilson, back in 1928. He specifically donated it for health purposes, but in the 1990s there was a Conservative Government. The public campaigned long and hard to keep this much loved cottage hospital open—but the Tories would not listen, and they closed it. Now, however, there is a different Government, and later this month the Wilson hospital will reopen as a general practitioner-led health centre, open from 8 in the morning till 8 at night—the hours that patients want—365 days a year. However, that is just the first stage of the plan to improve the Wilson, and it will ultimately be a full care centre offering diagnostics, a variety of medical treatments, dentists and GPs, out-patient treatments, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, X-rays, electrocardiography, ultrasound, a baby clinic and even minor day surgery. What is more, the Wilson is not just getting a care centre; it is going to reopen as a proper cottage hospital, with minor operations and more than 50 intermediate care beds for people recuperating from operations or in need of care that they cannot get at home. The first stage—our local GP-led health centre—opens on 31 March. The remainder of the hospital will be open by 2013. That is still three years away and subject to planning approval, but I want to commend Ministers, officials and NHS staff for all that they have done so far, and take this opportunity to encourage them to keep up their good work. We are delighted with our new GP-led health centre, but we want the rest as soon as we can have it. The Wilson is in one of the most deprived wards in the whole of south-west London, and will make an enormous difference to many people's lives. That was the tale of the Wilson; now I want to tell the House about St. Helier hospital. St. Helier opened in the 1930s to serve one of Europe's largest council estates, but by the 1990s it had become shabby, and in 1996 it became infamous when patients were left on trolleys in the corridor because there were no beds. If anybody wants a reminder of what a Tory Government means, it is patients dying in the corridor because there is no room in the hospital. St. Helier was at rock bottom, so NHS bosses under the previous Government developed plans to shut it and move its services across south London to Croydon. Things happen slowly in the NHS, but a process was set in motion, and eventually the local NHS proposed moving everything to Belmont, in the Surrey suburbs. However, when residents across the region were consulted, Belmont was the least favourite choice. St. Helier was the favourite choice. Luckily, in 2004 there was a Labour council in Merton, and it called in the Belmont decision. A year later my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt) agreed with residents, instructing the NHS to rebuild St. Helier rather than relocate, because this would help reduce health inequalities. Unfortunately, as I am sure the Minister of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), would admit, things do not always run smoothly in an organisation as big as the NHS. There have been a few jolts along the way, but last year London's NHS finally approved the full plans for St. Helier hospital, and last month the Department of Health gave them the green light. I would like to thank my right hon. and learned Friend personally for his enormous help. He has repeatedly met me, as well as the hon. Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who have been assiduously helpful themselves. He has been very hands-on, and has done his best to ensure that officials deliver the health service that people in Mitcham and Morden, Sutton and Carshalton all want. Now we just have to wait for the final rubber stamp from the Treasury. I thank Ministers for all their support. I have invited my right hon. and learned Friend to meet my constituents to hear what they think about our local NHS. I am pleased to say that he has agreed to join us later this month. He is very welcome. In many ways he is the personification of the tale of two hospitals, but it is also a tale of two Governments. The first was a broken Government running a broken NHS, shutting a cottage hospital that had been built to help poor workers in south London and plotting to close a general hospital where people were dying on trolleys because they could not find beds—the worst instincts of a Conservative Government. Those were the worst of times, but that was the 1990s. Now it is 2010. Our broken health service is slowly being put back together under a Labour Government, with the Wilson reopening and St. Helier not only safe from closure, but likely to be completely rebuilt. It might be stretching the point to say that we are now in the best of times, but things are certainly a lot better than they were. I am proud of the progress that we have already made and hopeful about future progress. On behalf of my constituents, I would thank like to thank everyone who has supported our local NHS in the past 13 years.