‘No-one will be fooled’ by MP’S hospital claim
Councillor rebuke as Prime Minister is asked question
A COUNTY and district councillor has criticised her local MP for claiming a campaign to save Leek Moorlands Hospital as her own.
The future of the hospital was raised in Parliament at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, as Karen Bradley asked Prime Minister Boris Johnson to join her campaign to keep the facility open with enhanced services.
Mrs Bradley said: “I was pleased to be able to ask the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Boris Johnson MP at Prime Minister’s Question time to join my campaign to keep Leek Moorlands Hospital open in Leek with enhanced services for the benefit of all people in Leek and Staffordshire Moorlands.”
However, county and district councillor for Leek, Charlotte Atkins, who has been a campaigner for the beds and services to remain at Leek Moorlands Hospital, said the Staffordshire Moorlands MP was “trying to talk up her involvement” with the campaign.
She said: “Karen Bradley spoke about her campaign for the hospital but it has never been her campaign and her involvement with Save Leek Hospital has been minimal.
“But with an election looming she is trying to talk up her involvement. No one will be fooled by that.
“The Save Leek Hospital campaign has secured the hospital as a site for future health services, a so-called Integrated Care Hub. But we in the campaign want far more than that. We must restore our hospital beds because they are vital for the rehabilitation of our elderly population.”
Councillor Atkins, pictured below, also said the beds must be restored.
“Mrs Bradley and her colleagues always fail to mention the beds because they want to claim the Integrated Care Hub as a victory when without the return of the beds it would not be,” she said.
“Leek Moorlands Hospital is the North Staffordshire community hospital furthest from an acute hospital. So community beds should be located there.”
The consultation is now closed and a report has been published. Governing Body members will receive and consider the feedback and determine which options to put forward to inform the Decision Making Business Case (DMBC)
Should the Governing Bodies agree to move forward, the Clinical Commissioning Groups will begin a process to develop the DMBC with NHS and local authority commissioning partners.
There are many assurance processes to go through, as well and the CCGS aim is to complete this by the end of November 2019.
The aim is to take the
DMBC to an Extra Ordinary Governing Body in public in December 2019 and at this point, the Governing Bodies will consider options and decide.