---

Health Care in London

In international women's week, I wish to pay tribute to all the women who work in our health service, from chief executives and chairs of trusts, to nurses, porters, physiotherapists, catering staff, cleaning staff, consultants, doctors, midwives and, above all, health visitors. The overwhelming majority of health visitors are women, because that is a profession that, above all, requires common sense. How many times throughout the world have women turned to their families after some apparent crisis and said, "At least we've got our health"? Our physical and mental health is the bedrock of all that we do and all that we are. As an MP, I therefore take a fundamental interest in and fundamental responsibility for the quality of health care services that my constituents enjoy. My interest must be not just in outputs—how much money or resources the Government make available—but in outcomes such as mortality rates, quality of care and speed of treatment. I must also bear responsibility, not for individual cases but for the configuration of services, their proper resourcing and the proper benchmarking and monitoring of delivery. Northwick Park hospital and St. Mark's hospital fall inside my constituency and, together with Central Middlesex hospital, which lies in the constituency of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler), form the North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which serves most people in Brent and Harrow. I am proud to say that it is the only trust assessed as "excellent" for the quality of its services in outer north-west London. Last summer, I was delighted that the trust was designated as one of only eight hyper acute stroke units for London. We have all seen the excellent public services adverts about FAST—Face, Arms, Speech, Time. I congratulate the trust on its success in winning this key unit, which is part of a scheme projected to save 500 lives a year across London. Although I was delighted by the announcement, may I advise the Secretary of State that I will be even more delighted when the Northwick Park hospital's trust is announced as one of the major acute hospitals for the sector, thus upgrading it still further? I trust that such an announcement may come later this year. While discussing major acute trusts, I must comment on the intervention by the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who is no longer in his place. He suggested that five accident and emergency departments would close at the eight north-west London hospitals. The "Healthcare for London" report actually talked of creating three major acute trusts. He has interpreted that to mean that three hospitals would stay the same and five would lose their accident and emergency departments, whereas in fact the strategic health authority has confirmed that all five will keep their existing accident and emergency departments, but three are due to be upgraded into what will, in effect, be super-providers. I trust that Opposition Members will now stop portraying as a cut what is in fact a proposed upgrade. There are three key milestones for the Northwick Park hospital's trust. The first is dealing with the hospital's historic debt of £21.5 million. That will take place over the next two months when the primary care trusts across London meet to agree their support for wiping out that debt. The second is the public consultation on the future configuration of the sector this autumn. The third is the support from NHS London to embark on a hospital rebuild.