What a depressing time for our local hospital.
During the campaign I said the NHS plans to improve St Helier and build a second local hospital were under threat from Labour and the Lib Dems - and on Monday 29th July, that threat’s been confirmed.
The new Labour Government announced (alongside scrapping winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners) a review with the potential for SCRAPPING new hospital plans like those for St Helier.
As for the Lib Dems, they’ve let them get away it - they have been very open that they oppose the local NHS plan to improve St Helier and build a second hospital. Now they're silent on Labour potentially shelving these plans. I think that's shameful.
Local NHS staff have put so much work into this plan, getting it to the point that it could apply for planning permission and get building.
Now, Labour and the Lib Dems have sent them back to square one.
I can't quite believe we're back here so soon after Labour and the Lib Dems are back in office. When I was the MP we'd finally got confirmation that St Helier was going nowhere, A&E and maternity were protected locally and we would get a second hospital in Sutton. A planning application for the new hospital was supposed to come THIS YEAR.
It's not even been a month since the election and Labour and the Lib Dems have thrown it all up in the air again.
The NHS Trust has been clear that they need this plan to be funded by Government in order to improve outcomes for local patients, but also that if they don't get that second hospital, there is a real risk to patients and to services being able to continue being provided locally.
It is that serious - if this plan isn't funded, there is a real risk to services closing.
Now people will be asking why this is happening. Labour are using the old political cliché of 'we didn't know until we got in', which has been completely torn apart. If you want to see proof, click here and here.
The public finances are just that, public. They made their manifesto and made promises they said were fully costed. They inherited a growing and resilient economy from the Conservatives and the truth is, they are laying the ground work for tax rises they originally said they wouldn't do. And just like with the hospital, the Lib Dems are just sitting there silently and letting them get away with it.
I won’t stop fighting for St Helier and I invite residents to help me.
Please sign my petition to be delivered to the Government before the dreaded budget in the Autumn where a final decision will be made, urging them to stick with the NHS plan to save St Helier and build a second hospital in Sutton.