The Save King George Hospital campaign is a multi-party, multi-faith campaign to stop the proposed closure of A&E and call for the return of Maternity services to King George Hospital, Ilford. @SaveKGHAand E
The save King George Hospital team are a community group campaigning
for a better deal for our local NHS.
We are alarmed at the £50M budget cut planned for the BHRUT budget
reported at your March board meeting.
If the threat of the cut has been lifted please could you let us know
at your earliest convenience by means of a press release on your
website and emailing Andy at the email above.
Regards
Councillor Begum, Imran Ahmed, Andy Walker, RoseMary Warrington
King George &
Queens Hospital face a £50M cut to their funding and a loss of 770
jobs per my email sent to you earlier today.
I am a resident of
Redbridge so your team may not have forwarded my email of earlier
about the cuts to you.
I am contacting you
because Cllr Santos, the Redbridge Council member for health will not
write to Wes Streeting MP asking him to stop the cuts.
If both yourself and
Cllr Rai do not make public representations to Wes Streeting then the
campaign to stop these damaging cuts will be on the back foot.
Anything you can do
will be much appreciated. ENDs video message
I wrote the following to all Havering Councillors earlier today;
Dear Councillors
At the 6th March BHRUT board meeting, Matthew Trainer, the BHRUT Chief Executive provided written and verbal reports about the damage the proposed £50M cut to the BHRUT budget would mean to the care provided at Queens and King George Hospitals. In short rather than improving care BHRUT would be managing declining care to do the least harm to patients.
I asked Cllr Rai, the Leader of Redbridge Council at the 20th March Redbridge Council meeting to write to Wes Streeting MP to help our hospitals. Cllr Rai delegated his reply to Cllr Santos, the cabinet member for health.
Cllr Santos give a detailed reply to my question, outlining his enthusiasm and commitment to the NHS. However, he said now was not the time to write to Wes, but left the option of writing to Wes at a later date.
Some you might remember me as part of team that campaigned to keep open King George A&E. At the time many people told me the closure was a done deal, and the A&E would close. Despite the odds being against us, the campaign was won. Today we face a similar situation. Wes Streeting MP appears committed to the £50M cut, nonetheless, if enough of us kick up a fuss the cut can be stopped.
Extracts from the key BHRUT board papers and a video clip of Mr Trainer explaining the damage the cuts will do are at my twitter andywalker and facebook andywalker19.
Should you be sympathetic to stopping the £50M cut I am canvassing for a photo shoot outside Queens this 29th Saturday 10:30am to deliver a letter of support, perhaps you could let me know if you could make it.
If Wes Streeting still persists with the cut then perhaps we should go to his office to hand in a letter to request he reverses the cut on Friday 4th April at 6pm.
Please don't hesitate to contact me on the number below should you have any questions.
Regards
Andy Walker -
07956 263088120 Blythswood Road IG3 8SG
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
I say at video above
"Thank you to Cllr Rai
for agreeing to my appeal on X to allow my question to him on
Thursday 20th meeting at Redbridge Town Hall asking him to
write to Wes Streeting to stop the 770 NHS jobs to be cut from King
George & Queens hospitals.
5 years ago some NHS
workers died saving us from covid. We stood at our doors and clapped
them for their bravery.
It is incomprehensible
to me that Wes is treating our local NHS staff so badly now that they
have to worry about losing their jobs when other hospitals appear to
be getting more staff.
I will be outside
Redbridge Town Hall with a banner at 6.45pm on 20th March
saying no to these dreadful cuts, it would be much appreciated if you
could join me and then come into the chamber to hear what Cllr Rai
has to say."
I also wrote to the Mayor this morning to say.
Dear Mayor Bain
My question has been ruled out of order for full council on the 20th March, due to it being out of time with the new deadline which was last Thursday. Last night at scrutiny, Liz Martins question was ruled out of order by officers, but allowed by the Chair. I request you follow the example of the chair from last night and let me speak on Thursday. My question regards the £50M budget cut for King George & Queens Hospitals. If Wes Streeting does not step in to stop the cut, 770 NHS jobs are set to go. Matthew Trainer, the CE of BHRUT in both his written and verbal report to the BHRUT board makes it clear that care will deteriorate if the cuts are allowed to stand. My twitter account has extracts from both.
Bearing in mind that Matthew reported that February 2025 was the busiest ever month for King George & Queens A&E departments, I say it must be a concern that if cuts are allowed to stand, to use the NHS jargon "excess deaths" will rise. My question that I am requesting you allow is: 1- Will the Leader write to Wes Streeting MP asking him to stop the £50M cut to the 25/26 BHRUT budget which if not stopped will cause the loss of 770 NHS jobs at King George & Queens Hospitals.
Regards
Andy
And got this reply later this afternoon
Dear Mr Walker
We have reconsidered your request to ask a question at Full Council and have noted that our website was not updated following the Constitutional change to public participation rules at Full Council in January, as such the Council is allowing your first question below as follows:
1- Will the Leader write to Wes Streeting MP asking him to stop the £50M cut to the 25/26 BHRUT budget which if not stopped will cause the loss of 770 NHS jobs at King George & Queens Hospitals.
The good news is that
the banner for the stop the 770 job NHS cuts at King George and
Queens Hospitals is due to be delivered for the Redbridge Council
meeting on the 20th March
The bad news is that my
question for the 20th March meeting asking for Councillor
Rai to help out the campaign to stop the job cuts has been blocked by
Redbridge Labour's new restrictive standing orders. 7 days notice of
a question is now required. The deadline previously was four days.
However, standing
orders can be suspended if the Leader thinks the issue is important
enough. So I am appealing to Cllr Rai to allow my question. The local
community came together when King George A&E was under threat and
we won, I believe if we kick up enough fuss, Wes will step in and do
the right thing and stop these unnecessary nasty cuts.
Should these NHS job
cuts go through, then the sick, the frail and the elderly will suffer
and to use the NHS jargon “excess deaths” seem bound to rise.
So Kam, please help out
with the campaign and allow my question and even better issue a
statement to ask Wes Streeting to intervene to stop the job cuts at
King George and Queens Hospital.
Following our meeting of 15th July I have this question to be tabled to Cllr Athwal at his last meeting as Council Leader on the 25th July.
Will the Leader agree, in light of the public meeting for a new wing for King George Hospital on the 15th July and BBC report saying corridor care is becoming the new normal at Queens to lead a march from King George to this Town Hall campaigning for a new wing for King George for maternity to return and more in-patient beds?
I will have our new wing our banner outside the Town Hall at 6:30pm with a photo shoot at 6;45pm to encourage Jas to lead the campaign.
Many thanks to everyone speaking and attending last night. The Town Hall backed off the ban on our banner being removed from the Town Hall railings. Despite being told earlier in the day the banner would be removed, the Town Hall had a change of heart and our banner was left in place per the pic below: Ashburn Holder of the Lib-Dems sent apologies due to illness and Syed Siddiqi of the Greens sent apologies for having to continue to work in his NHS job and Mohammed Asif whose family responsibilities prevented his attendance.
Unfortunately my phone camera did not work inside, but I hope to have some photos shortly.
The video of the meeting is below:
There were calls for the floor for a march so I will post more about this in due course.
Yesterday the banner promoting the new wing for King George meeting
on the 15th July on the Town Hall steps was confiscated by Town Hall
staff. This is the second time this has happened.
There is a recording of the incident on my twitter account.
I have ordered a third banner and intend to put it on the
Town Hall railings again on the 15th July at 7:30pm.
I believe the Town Hall staff have been overly heavy handed
and misunderstood the law.
However, should I be wrong I would be grateful if the appropriate Councillor, which is likely to be Cllr Athwal, who this morning was still listed as Council Leader, could explain what law is being broken and the penalty.
I was blocked from speaking at overview this evening, but I am delighted to report town hall staff changed their mind and I will be speaking.
I hope that the order banning the banner going up on the Town Hall steps will also be rescinded.
It would be great if any of you could attend the meeting on the 15th July at 8pm at our Town Hall.
Regards
Andy – email allowing me to speak below:
Dear Andy,
You have been registered to speak as requested. Please refer
to my earlier email.
Noting that the information that you have requested in
relation to the PDC Overview Report is accessible via Officers within the
Council’s Business Intelligence (BI) Team, rather than via a Councillor on the
OSC to whom you have directed your question, I am assisting in the provision of
this information to you, as provided by the BI Team in the attached charts.
The information provides projections data from the Office
for National Statistics (ONS) which is based on the 2011 values, projected from
2018 – 2043, split by 5-year age groups and by sex. It also includes ward level
projections from 2011 – 2041, split by sex.
I trust that this information sufficiently responds to your
question.
