Response to recent media reports about the future of Charing Cross Hospital
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust reaffirms its commitment to Charing Cross Hospital in response to recent media reports about the Hospital’s long-term future.
Dr William Oldfield, deputy medical director, said: “Some recent media reports about the future of Charing Cross Hospital have been very misleading. They have been based on documents purported to have been drafted to support the north west London sustainability and transformation plan (STP) published last year. These documents were in fact publically released over four years ago – as part of the Shaping a healthier future reconfiguration programme – and refer to plans that have actively not been taken forward.
“The STP has actually provided a good opportunity to agree some firm commitments about how we will approach service change. In a letter to Hammersmith and Fulham Council on 27 March 2017, written jointly with local clinical commissioning groups, we set out how we had come together with other NHS, local authority and voluntary sector partners to develop the STP. This included making a firm commitment that Charing Cross will continue to provide its current A&E and wider services for at least the lifetime of the plan, which runs until April 2021. We also made the commitment to work jointly with staff, communities and councils to design new models of care to help people stay healthy and avoid unnecessary or long hospital admissions, and to be sure these new models of care were reducing acute hospital demand before looking to reduce any acute capacity at Charing Cross.
“We invested over £8m in Charing Cross Hospital last year – to refurbish urgent and emergency care wards, theatres, outpatient clinics and lifts and to create a patient service centre and the main new facility for North West London Pathology. We are looking to make further, significant investments this year.”
