Ravenscourt Park Hospital Fate Remains Uncertain

Scrutiny Committee may refer closure to Secretary of State for Health

The Patients’ Forum for Hammersmith Hospitals Trust presented its case for Ravenscourt Park Hospital in front of a packed audience at Hammersmith Town Hall on Tuesday 21st November.

Members of the Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Scrutiny Committee heard the Forum’s complaint that the Hospital Trust had denied patients and the public their legal right to be consulted about the proposal to close the hospital. The legal duty to consult arises under Section 11 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001.

Lynette Royle, for the Patients’ Forum, said that the Trust’s contention that there was no need to consult in this instance because the closure was not a substantial variation in service was at variance with every piece of published guidance on Section 11 that the Forum had been able to find, as well as with two recent legal challenges both of which had found in favour of patients.

After a lengthy and wide ranging debate, the chair of the committee Cllr Peter Tobias stated that morally he was in no doubt that a breach of section 11 had occurred. However the meeting was unable to come to a definitive conclusion because the committee proposed that they should refer the matter onwards to the Secretary of State for Health, and there was uncertainty over whether it actually had the legal power to do so. A motion to do so if legally permissible was carried unanimously.

Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, Lynette Royle said: “It was a bit frustrating for the Forum and all those patients and members of the public who came along to support us not to have a more conclusive result, but I think the point that patients and the public were denied their legal right in the case of the closure of Ravenscourt Park Hospital has been well made.

“The Forum takes no pleasure at all in this. We would have greatly preferred to have  had the opportunity to work constructively with the Trust to keep this fantastic hospital open, which is surely the whole point of the drive towards a patient-led NHS. Our challenge now is to try and build a more constructive dialogue with the Trust so that they see patients as an integral and useful part of their decision-making process, and not just an afterthought.”

November 27, 2006