Brent Council has urged health care bosses to delay the controversial closure of an A&E unit until improvements are made to the casualty at Northwick Park Hospital (NPH).
Council chiefs are calling for the North West London Hospital (NWLH) NHS Trust to push back plans to close the unit at Central Middlesex Hospital (CMH), in Acton Lane, Park Royal, following a damning report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on the department, in Watford Road.
In the dossier released last month, NPH’s overall performance was deemed to require improvement, and received further criticism for staff shortages and its inability to meet the 4-hour waiting time target.
NHS bosses have been summoned to the council chambers to face questions from the scrutiny committee on September 9 over the findings in the report.
Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of the council said: “The council has grave concerns over the contents of the health watchdog’s report on Northwick Park which laid bare a number of serious failings which require urgent and robust action from hospital bosses.
“We cannot tolerate a situation where Brent residents are left with sub-standard health and emergency services - especially when this hospital is going to be a main hub if Central Middlesex A&E unit is closed.”
The casualty will become the borough’s main hub for accident and emergencies and is set to see an increase in patients if the A&E unit at CMH closes on September 10 as planned.
In July, David McVittie, chief executive of NWLH NHS Trust, admitted the A&E closure could create problems but pledged the new £21 million NPH casualty unit which includes 40 individual bays, will allow them to cope with the pressure.
He said: “We have a good understanding of the challenges that we face and were able to highlight these to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at the start of their inspection.
“A number of the challenges that we discussed with the CQC in regards to emergency care will be improved be consolidating emergency services on to the Northwick Park site.
“We do not expect there to be large impact on Northwick Park’s A&E department as a result of the planned closure of Central Middlesex and Hammersmith A&E departments. We currently see around 230 patients a day at Northwick Park and modelling shows that we will see only 24 additional attendances leading to 12 additional admissions into hospital a day. We will be opening 20 extra beds to allow for this.”
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