The East London Health & Care Partnership needs to say whether it still stands by its April 3rd Statement on new King George A&E closure plan

Yesterday, I asked the three questions below at the BHRUT board meeting:

a – Will you apologise for making your misleading statement of April 1 saying King George A&E is safe?

b- Will you commit to future good conduct by agreeing to publish bed numbers, critical bed numbers and excess death rates for King George & Queens?

c- Will you agree to public consultation of the new plan to close King George A&E?

Rather than engage with these issues, the Chair, Joe Feilder called me “malicious”

I say BHRUT should have published the new £49M plan to close King George A&E https://redbridgetradeunionparty.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/elhcp-bhrut-acute-reconfiguration-bid-foi-5926.pdf 12 months ago before it was sent to the Department of Health to seek funding for it. Not to do so was underhand. By BHRUT's own description it is a “radical” plan (first line, first paragraph, page 11).

And at page 36, the closure plan makes it clear that “alternative funding sources” are to be sought.

This is exactly what happened when East London Health & Care Partnership (ELHCP) managers give a presentation to Councillors at old Stratford Town Hall on April 3^rd.

The slides confirm what was said at the meeting which is recorded at my Facebook page, namely that the capital bids supported by the ELHCP which were turned down by the Department of Health were still sound and were to be pursued. I quote from the ELHCP slide on April 3rd:-

“We are confident that we submitted a robust, well evidenced and realistic set of bids that would significantly progress our plans to meet the care and health needs of our local populations. Partnership organisations are proactively seeking alternative funding solutions to address the inevitable and significant issues caused by the decision..” (my emphasis)

My question is to the ELHCP is so:

Do you stand by the document presented on 3rd April?

I hope you can understand that I and others cannot see how your position and that of BHRUT can both be right at the same time.

The ELHCP is senior to BHRUT, so unless you retract your statement of 3^rd April, I and others will go to 10 Downing Street on 3^rd May to seek that the new plan to close King George A&E is put out to public consultation.

After hiding the new £49M closure plan from the public, BHRUT can have no credibility on this issue.

The reality is BHRUT are committed to the new closure plan per the extract from page 125 of their board papers published yesterday.