Stephen McPartland has been pressing Ministers for clarification on the reconfiguration of health services in Hertfordshire. He has been working hard behind the scenes and earlier today, Stephen secured a high-level meeting with Simon Burns, the Minister of State for Health, and also in attendance were Nick Carver, Chief Executive of East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, Sir Neil Mackay, Chief Executive of East of England Health Authority and Jane Halpin, Acting Chief Executive of NHS Hertfordshire (PCT).
Stephen McPartland said “I wanted to get reassurance from the Minister that the first three phases of the developments would proceed at the Lister hospital and I was delighted that everyone around the table was supportive. This means the new surgicentre, the maternity unit and the car park will continue as planned and should all open sometime next year.
The second aspect of the meeting was to discuss phase 4 which is the consolidation of Acute services at the Lister to ensure it is a centre of clinical excellence. I explained that we needed to disentangle this decision from the QEII, where there should be a new local general hospital with a range of services that need to be negotiated locally. What happens at the Lister is a separate issue and we hope to get a green light to proceed with the business case in July. This means no time will have been lost”.
Stephen added “Protecting and improving our local NHS is a key priority and I will continue working with Unions, managers, Staff, clinicians and patients to deliver the best healthcare possible for local people. This is just the start and we need to campaign hard to make sure we deliver real results. There has been too much talk over the last thirteen years, it is time for action”.