February saw 2,200 redundancies in London’s Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authority – and then saw announcements of 1,500 jobs losses in three key acute hospital trusts – Barts and The London, Kingston, and St Georges. Job losses will include doctors, nurses and consultants. The Chief Executive of St Georges is quite clear: the Trust has to manage on a 25 per cent reduction in income. So much for Cameron’s ring-fencing of NHS funding.
Before the election, Cameron, Clegg and Kingston LibDem MP Edward Davey all campaigned to stop cuts at Kingston. Davey set up a “Save the Kingston” campaign which was exposed by The Daily Mirror as fake: Kingston was never under threat from the Strategic Health Authority or previous Labour cuts. The local LibDem Borough Council Scrutiny Committee unanimously voted against cuts in 2010.
Now Davey vehemently promotes the cuts. When Cameron visited Kingston in 2010 he said he supported “this hospital and the excellent maternity unit”. The draft plans include cutting 22 consultants, 214 nurses, midwives and health visitors.