Some community events

A couple of local events people have asked us to publicise:

Art Auction Fundraiser

From Niamh at the Hill Station Cafe, Kitto Road, SE14: 'I am holding a fundraiser art auction at the Hill Station to raise money for camera equipment for a new photography youth project i'm running. The show will include works from many local artists and we have Telegraph Hill's very own Sanjit Chundha as our auctioneer!'. The I-to-Eye project will be working with young people in London and in Sierra Leone. The event takes places on Saturday 16th February 2013.

Kids and adult volunteering day for building a community garden

'The Assembly is hosting a mums and kids-friendly volunteering day on Sun 3rd February to bring life to the Old Tidemill community garden in Deptford. Located in Frankham street, just off the Deptford library, counts a recently built tree house, a circular pond and theatre space.

Local families in Lewisham are invited to join cleaning, digging and planting seeds for the spring season. The Assembly aims to create a community space where kids can play and learn about plants, animals and design. Please wear suitable clothing for being outside and potentially getting a bit muddy.

Sunday 3rd February, 12pm to 4pm, Old Tidemill community garden, Frankham street SE8 4RN'.

You saved our lives, now we'll save yours

As health secretary Jeremy Hunt ponders whether to commit political hari-kari by approving a high profile closure of essential NHS services at Lewisham Hospital, a last minute musical intervention shows further evidence of how the threat to emergency and maternity services has united so many people with a common purpose to defend free healthcare in our local area.

Save Lewisham A&E is a great track by Lewisham rapper Question (aka Question Musiq) with the BBC-featured Lewisham NHS Choir, directed by Charles Bailey and video filmed by Chris Martin (not that one, who sadly hasn't yet taken to the streets with Gwyneth Paltrow to save Lewisham Hospital).

Some nices lines:

'You saved our lives now we'll save yours...

Lewisham I was born and raised
Where I spent most of my days
Indoor market Saturdays
I love this town, I love this place

Mum would always say
When she she was pregnant with me
And had difficulties
Had to rush to A& E

Pushing through your consultation, but we know our rights
Now we're marching cos we won't give up without a fight'

You can get all three mixes of it on iTunes.



With Hunt's decision due tomorrow, campaigners are preparing to either celebrate or fight on. If Hunt does decide to proceed with closure, many people will be heading straight down to Lewisham Hospital tomorrow at 6 pm to step it up - watch out on twitter etc. for updates.

Lewisham Hospital Demonstration No.2

Today's march against the threatened closure of Accident & Emergency and Maternity services at Lewisham Hospital was huge, with estimates ranging from 15,000 to 25,000. Certainly it seemed bigger than the similar demonstration last November where the crowd was estimated at 10 to 15,000 - and that was the largest protest in Lewisham for at least 30 years. The demonstration has achieved national coverage for the campaign to save Lewisham as a comprehenisve local acute hospital (see report in Guardian, BBC etc).

Usually when a march assembles from 12 you don't expect it to leave until about 1, but this demo headed off promptly at 12.15 - presumably because the space where people were meeting up was already getting overcrowded.

It headed off from the roundabout by the station, down through the town centre, past the hospital before turning left up the hill to Mountsfield Park. Everything I enthused about on the November demonstration - the energy, diversity and creativity - was still there, only more so if anything.

Lewisham Hospital, like many similar local health services, is associated with some of the most significant moments in people's lives: birth, suffering, recovery, death. I have lain on the floor of that A & E crying in pain, slept in the children's ward next to my sick son, visited my partner after surgery. Most people locally have similar stories. That gives the campaign a deep reservoir of emotion to draw on, as well all the rational reasons why decimating a perfectly good local hospital makes no sense whatsoever.

'I'm a triplet born at Lewisham Maternity'
- the cutest placards of the day, outside Lewisham fire station

But strong feelings and arguments don't get huge crowds on the streets on their own - that takes organisation. In the lead-up to the march there was an impressive amount of community-organising, with banners and posters everywhere, leafleting, and groups of people in their streets and workplaces deciding to come out together on the demonstration.

'NHS Health Visitors love all of Lewisham Hospital'

David Cameron - 'hands off our hospital'

'Save our Children's Ward - Save Lewisham Hospital'

'Save Lewisham Hospital - Support from Brockley'
(the old Brockley/Broccoli joke never grows old)

Outside Lewisham Hospital

One innovation was the 'Save Lewisham Hospital'  placards with a blank white space at the top to write in the names of supporters of the campaign. The ones above were from Sydenham Green Group Practice and Lewisham Children's Outpatients, there were others from many local groups and even shops (I saw Jay's Budgens and Arlo & Moe's cafe in Brockley). This was the Big Society on the march!

London Sivan Kovil - Lewisham Hindu Temple

The Millwall FC Lion - the Millwall double decker bus was in the park at the end

'If it ain't broke'

Parkinsons patients and advocates say 'Don't cut my lifeline'

Mountsfield Park at the end was very muddy so many people didn't stick around too long. There was music in the bandstand and some games, including the Jeremy Hunt Coconut Shy ('knock the rotten block off!).

... and Splatt the Rat! (no prizes for guessing identity of the rat).

There was also a giant petition scroll - this section was fairly typical: '4 nephews and nieces, 1 saved sister, 1 little brother, leave our hospital alone, hands off our hospital Hunt'

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt now has less than a week to make his decision on the future of Lewisham Hospital. If he decides not to proceed with the closures, it will be a great victory. If he decides to plough on, the campaign will certainly not be over.

(See also photos and reports at Andy Worthington, Alternative SE4, Crosswhatfields; more Transpontine Lewisham Hospital coverage).

Lewisham Hospital: Countdown to Victory?

With momentum building up towards tomorrow's demonstration against the threat to Lewisham Hospital, here's some of the latest developments.

Polly Toynbee Weighs In

Polly Toynbee points out some of the national implications of the Lewisham situation in this Guardian piece today, and notes that the rules regarding making this decision, if actually followed, would prevent the closure: 'By next Friday the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is legally obliged to take a decision that will ricochet through the NHS. Does he agree with the administrator of the bankrupt South London Healthcare NHS Trust, that accident and emergency and maternity units at the thriving Lewisham hospital should be shut, despite monumental local opposition? 

.... Hunt is obliged to follow four impossible conditions before signing any administrator's plan. First, local clinicians must agree – but none do in Lewisham, nor will they elsewhere. Second, the public, patients and local authority must have been "genuinely consulted": they were and they vehemently object, so what's "genuine" if a consultation is ignored, as so often? Even more impossible, the plan must be underpinned by "clear clinical evidence", but there rarely is any, only assertions that lives will be saved. Professor Alan Maynard, an eminent health economist, says the evidence doesn't exist to show that large A&E or maternity units necessarily do better, though it has become a managerial factoid. It may or may not be better in some places, depending, untested with genuine proof.

Lewisham will be left with a midwife-led maternity unit, dangerous on its own since more than a third of its mothers in labour are transferred with complications. Finally, Hunt must ensure any changes give patients "a choice of good-quality providers", but they can't choose a good hospital that has shut. If those are binding criteria he must turn this down, but if money trumps these he will have to say so... Lewisham is just a harbinger of what's to come'.

Cartoon by Tom Humberstone from the New Statesman

Impact on Kings

The potential impact on Kings College Hospital in Camberwell is shaping up to be a major issue in its own right, barely considered in the Trust Special Administrator's report that recommended closing services at Lewisham. The South London Press quotes from a letter to the Health Secretary from Southwark and Lambeth MPs which states the position fairly clearly:

'It is now acknowledged that most of the patients who would otherwise have used Lewisham A&E will come to King’s. This will have a major impact on the service provided in King’s A&E. It simply will not be possible to maintain the high standard of service which King’s seeks to provide in A&E, and in particular in paediatric A&E.

“We estimate the following, based on NHS figures: 54 per cent of patients - or 65,000 people - who would otherwise have gone to Lewisham will come to King’s A&E - that is an increase of almost 45 per cent for King’s A&E. As it is, there is a small but concerning increase in waiting times at King’s A&E. If Lewisham A&E closes it is inconceivable that King’s would be able to maintain what is a much improved service for our constituents. Of those 65,000 extra A&E patients approximately 12,200 will be likely to be admitted to King’s as emergencies - that is an almost 45 per cent increase in emergency admissions at King’s.

That will place a further pressure on inpatient beds at a time when King’s management have raised with us their concerns about capacity at King’s. They say they are already looking to take on extra capacity at Princess Royal in Bromley to deal with outpatients and non-emergency admissions. To accommodate the additional emergency admissions even more non-emergency admissions will have to be moved out of King’s to Princess Royal University Hospital in Bromley. For our constituents - many of whom do not own a car - the journey from Camberwell to Princess Royal in Bromley would mean a journey of at least a bus and a train lasting more than an hour and costing £5.50.

We estimate that if Lewisham maternity services close then there will be 3,235 more births at King’s to add to the existing 6,000 births, an increase of 54 per cent of births at King’s. There is simply not the capacity at King’s for a 54 per cent increase in births. It would not be fair on the mothers, the babies or the staff. There are already mothers who want to give birth at King’s who have to go elsewhere - some are referred to Lewisham.”

An Olympic Effort

The Standard reports today that 'NHS nurses who starred in the Olympics opening ceremony are to lead a mass rally against cuts at a London hospital. Dozens will reunite in protest at plans to axe the A&E department and maternity wards at Lewisham Hospital to help tackle a £207 million private finance initiative crisis at two neighbouring hospitals. They will be joined by drummers from Danny Boyle’s Olympics pageant and lead an expected 20,000-strong crowd through the borough tomorrow to a rally in Mountsfield Park'.

Lewisham Hospital Unison members call for support

You know what you've got to do don't you? Tomorrow 12 noon by Lewisham station.

See also: More Transpontine Lewisham Hospital Coverage

Jimmy Page at the Rivoli

Back in November 2012, there was a bit of a flurry on Twitter after somebody reported bumping into Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame in Brockley, who said he was doing a photo shoot at the Rivoli Ballroom.

The results of that photoshoot have seen the light of day this week. Seems it was a fashion shoot  for  menswear designer John Varvatos, also featuring contemporary US blues musician Gary Clark Jr. The photos by Danny Clnch don't really give show much of the interior of the Rivoli, they could really have been taken anywhere.

The short film released at the same time does show more of the area, with Clark performing in the Ballroom and Jimmy Page driving through the mean streets of South London to arrive there.

From the video here's Clark inside the Rivoli:

Jimmy Page on Brockley Road...

...and Page entering the Ballroom

Lewisham Hospital Protest at Department of Health

In the build up to this Saturday's big Save Lewisham Hospital demonstration, supporters mounted a 'mums and buggies' protest outside the Department of Health headquarters in Whitehall today, with around 60 parents with their children blockading the entrance. Currently 4,000 babies are born every year at the hospital, but maternity services will be radically reduced under the cuts proposals.

Consultant obstetrician Ruth Cochrane said: "Lewisham currently has full maternity services and it is wonderful to see that so many local mothers have come out to support the trust. Proposals to downgrade these services and to have a midwife-led birth centre – without the back-up provided by full obstetric services - are just not safe. If women experience a complication during childbirth they would have to be transferred from Lewisham to King's Hospital or to Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich, both of which are simply too far." (see report at Newsshopper).

Support for the campaign was also shown at Millwall's home match against Burnley last weekend, with players warming up in 'Save Lewisham A&E' t-shirts. The club's FA Cup match against Aston Villa has been moved from Saturday to Friday 25th to avoid a clash with the demonstration - apparently the police can't cope with both on the same day. The club is fully behind the campaign saying:  'Whilst changing the date of our Cup tie is an inconvenience to us, we believe there is a bigger picture here. Millwall Football Club, our players, staff and many thousands of fans have, over the years, had reason to be grateful for the resources, facilities and care we have received from our local hospital. We are not persuaded by the arguments put forward in favour of closing the A&E department, childrens ward, intensive care and maternity services at Lewisham...  we would also encourage supporters who feel strongly about this issue to attend the demonstration next Saturday'.

The demonstration on Saturday will start at Lewisham Roundabout (by the station) at 12 noon on Saturday 26th January. It will march past the hospital to Mountsfield Park for rally, music and giant petition.

If you can give out any leaflets at work, school or in your street, there are details of how to help at the Save Lewisham Hospital site.

As discussed here previously, the threat to Lewisham Hospital services has now become a national issue as a test case for the Coalition Government's claims that the NHS is safe in its hands. Two weeks ago the subject dominated BBC's Question Time, filmed in New Cross. In last Saturday's Guardian magazine, columnist Lucy Mangan wrote: 'we march again, next Saturday. Please come. You don't have to live in Lewisham. Because if there's one thing the dragooning of Lewisham into the service of a neighbouring trust's debt shows, it's that where you live doesn't matter. Your beloved, priceless, well-sited hospital – be it ever so efficient, admired or attuned to local needs – could at any point be next in the stealthy process of breaking up the NHS and selling it, privately, for parts'. Writing in New Statesman, Lewisham Hospital-born Rowenna Davis remarked: 'For many, this is a political decision. Lewisham is a poor area and as one doctor put it, “There is very little to lose when everyone votes Labour here anyway”. The alternative is to close hospitals in Conservative-held areas like Kent, and MPs like Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling and Julian Lewis have already proven that even Tories can’t justify closures in their own backyard. Some call it “fiscal nimbyism”. Patients and doctors call it understanding the consequences when you’re close to them'.

The campaign has also gained international support in the shape of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu who has reportedly described the plans as 'scandalous'. And if you're wondering what it's got to do with him, it was his local hospital when he lived in Brownhill Road, Catford in the 1970s, and he opened the Riverside building at Lewisham Hospital in 2007.

Today's protest was the main story in ITV London News and also featured on BBC London.

Deptford and New Cross in the Snow Today

St Paul's Church, Deptford (above and below)

Deptford Project, Deptford High Street

Margaret McMillan Park

Fordham Park

New Cross Road

Telegraph Hill Park

'Save New Cross Fire Station'
(threatened with closure)

Bourgeois Decadence. In Catford.

The Daily Mail (17 January 2013) reports this Lewisham story with its usual mix of salaciousness and outrage:

'A French bistro is set to lose its licence after a council launched an investigation into it holding 'sex parties' in the basement. Bosses of the Le Bourgeois eatery - situated on the ground floor of a 1960s tower block called Eros House in Catford, south London - have been told that its license faces being withdrawn after a raft of complaints from neighbours...

According to locals the bistro holds regular 'basement sex parties', with strippers and exotic dancers and 'private booths' for regulars. Locals also reported people openly having sex outside the eatery - whose name translates as 'the middle classes' - with one saying he found hands prints all over his car, suggesting someone had romped on his bonnet...

Others said the restaurant was a 'haven' for sex parties, with one saying that a 'pool party' held last summer - in which punters turned up in swimming costumes - turned into a 'sexual free for all'. He said: 'They all turned up in swimming costumes - maybe 20 people and by the end of the night they were outside having sex on cars and on the pavement - it's disgusting.'

Police said that parties - called 'late night adult parties' - are advertised as The Thick Lick - which is slang for a 'sensual massage' which ends up with a pair having sex.The ads for the parties state that the restaurant will lay on 'male and female performers, exotic dancers, private rooms'.

The matter is being discussed tonight, Thursday 18 January, at Lewisham Council's Licensing Committee. The full report on the bar/cafe in Brownmill Road SE6 is here - sex does figure, but it seems late night drinking and dominoes is more common at the bar. The main complaints from the neighbours are the usual ones of noise and dodgy blokes pissing in the stairs, rather than Caligula in Catford. A photo suggests that the pool party consisted of a couple of paddling pools behind the block.

View at Deptford

The etching 'View at Deptford' was sketched by the artist John Sell Cotman (1788-1842). The contemporary of Turner was born in Norwich and later taught drawing at King's College School in London, with his pupils include Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I wonder where in Deptford this was? The date is also unknown.

The drawing is in the collection at Tate Britain.

What next for the Heygate Estate?

In the time since the Heygate Estate at the Elephant and Castle was emptied out (with the exception of some remaining leaseholders), it has led an active afterlife. Perhaps most notably it has been a favoured film and TV location for directors seeking gritty urban decay. In Harry Brown (2009) for instance it features as a crime-dominated riot zone in need of some vigilante violence from Michael Caine. In the real world though this dystopian vision has not materialised. Rather there has been an explosion of creativity, with the whole estate turned into an open air street art gallery with a garden project, storytelling sessions, fashion shoots and, on New Years Eve, a big rave. Oh and last June it was visited by Completely Naked, a kind of naturist performance art flashmob.

All of this is fine, I had a lovely time there myself over the summer sitting on a settee by a bonfire and barbecue at a friend's birthday party, playing a few tunes. But I do feel slightly ambivalent about the Estate's new found hip status.  What sometimes seems to get forgotten is that this was a place where thousands of people from all over the world made their lives, often in difficult circumstances. A place where people were born, loved, and died. When the estate was full, your average radical/hipster was more likely to denounce it as an inhumane slab of brutalism than celebrate it as urban adventure zone - seems like everybody loves the Heygate now that (almost) nobody lives there. Or maybe Owen Hatherley, who has written about the Heygate, really has helped swing the argument in favour of an appreciation of the semi-utopian aspirations of some of the modernist architects (including the Heygate's architect, Tim Tinker).

The big question though is what happens next. Some people wonder whether it should just be left as it is, a ruin at the heart of the city gradually turning into an overgrown forest and playground. Certainly there is something appealing about this romantic idea, but even leaving aside the realpolitik of land, the asbestos-riddled buildings would presumably become quite dangerous at some point without further investment.  However if the old Heygate Estate may be moving beyond the point of no return, there is still plenty of discussion about what could or should replace it.

Whatever the problems of the old Heygate, the Council Estate building programme of that period (1960s/early 1970s) did represent an attempt to create mass, affordable housing with modern amenities (central heating, indoor bathrooms etc) - in this case close to the centre of London.  Today Councils are largely starved of money to build new housing, even where they might want to, and it is private developers who are being handed places like the Elephant to redevelop. Tomorrow, Tuesday 15 January at 6 pm,  Southwark Council’s Planning Committee will be considering the Masterplan for the Elephant and Castle area, submitted by Land Lease.  Local community critics of the scheme will be putting their views to the committee, and have asked for others to attend to support them. According to Southwark Notes, among the issues they will raise will be the fact that as it stands the proposed scheme replaces 1100 Council homes with 2300 new homes, none of which will have Council tenants and only  71 of which will be socially rented. Campaigners are arguing that a minumum of 35% of housing should be genuinely affordable.

Meanwhile on 29 March, London Dreamtime and Nigel of Bermondsey present 'Supernatural Urban Forest':  'As the barriers go up around the Heygate Estate, the moment of closure and demolition gets ever closer... The high walkways are now closed but the magical Urban Forest in the centre of the Heygate can still be accessed. Join us there after dark for stories and songs of death and the supernatural. Plus quite possibly some slides from the Urban Magic Lantern... Cost £3 email neckingernell@yahoo.com for full details and to book your place'

A white stag, as spotted in Lewisham - subject to the Millwall treatment

Music & Liberation - and a 1980s feminist bookshop in New Cross

Tomorrow (Sunday 13 January, 12 to 6 pm) is the final day for the Music and Liberation exhibition at Space Station Sixty-Five (pictured), Building One, 373 Kennington Road, London SE11 4PS

The exhibition includes material from the Women's Liberation Music Archive, with zines, posters and recordings from the 1970s and 1980s feminist movement. The closing events include:

2.00 - 3.30pm:  A conversation between Barby Asante, founder of the South London Black Music Archive, and exhibition curator Deborah Withers about community memories, generational transmission and music. Chaired by Tom Perchard, author of Lee Morgan – His Life, Music and Culture.

3.45: Screening of the trailer for Hip-Hop Hijabis, with a brief presentation from Mette Reitzel.

4-5pm : Film showing of a documentary about The Gluts, who are comprised of Hayley Newman, Gina Birch and Kaffe Matthews. ‘The Gluts resist the current dismantling of culture and our welfare state – market-led solutions, corporate greed, millionaire government types, capitalism and their roles within climate change and its ongoing effect on our world and people. We want life, not death: education not poverty: fulfillment not oppression. We want libraries with books in them, a healthy health service and a global commons for everyone to share and enjoy, now and in the future!’ The film will be followed by a Q & A, and the showing of Gluts’ pop videos.

A 1980s feminist bookshop in New Cross

Looking through the material today, I found an advert in Woman Sound magazine (May 1984) for a New Cross feminist bookshop, Bookplus, at 27 Lewisham Way 'for all your feminist book requirements'. I've come across references to this shop before - the earliest from 1979 and the last from 1988, so it was presumably there for most of the 1980s. Most adverts though give the address as 23 rather than 27, with the name 'Books Plus' rather than 'Bookplus' (e.g. in Spare Rib in 1981 it is listed as 'Books Plus, socialist feminst bookshop'). Does anyone remember this place or know any more about it?

Threat confirmed to South London Fire Stations

The threat to a large number of London fire stations first became apparent late last year, with the leaking of a report. Now the threat has been confirmed with the publication of the draft 'London Safety Plan', released today at the London Fire Brigade Headquarters. The draft plan includes proposals to close 12 London fire stations, with the loss of 520 firefighter and office jobs, in order to enforce Mayor Boris Johnson's cuts of £45m.

South London stations earmarked for closure include:

- New Cross;
- Downham;
- Southwark
- Woolwich;
- Clapham.

Along with Belsize, Bow,  Clerkenwell, Kingsland, Knightsbridge, Silvertown and Westminster

It is clear that Peckham was also on the closure list, but has been spared because it would be politically unacceptable to close it at this time as  'This proposal would be under consideration in parallel with the Lakanal inquest (which starts on 14 January 2013)'. Peckham is now instead recommended to have the number of fire appliances reduced from two to one.

Six people died in the 2009 Lakanal tower block fire in Camberwell, with others being rescued by firefighters. Would as many have survived there, and at the Carrisbrooke Gardens fire in Peckham in the same year, if there had only been one fire engine in Peckham and no station at nearby New Cross from which to get back up? Or how about the 12 people rescued from a fire at a hostel in Lewisham Way, New Cross in November 2010?

In 2011/12, fire engines were mobilised from Lewisham's five stations on more than 6,300 occasions. If two of the five close - New Cross and Downham - there will inevitably be less cover available from the remaining three (Forest Hill, Deptford, Lewisham). The London Fire Brigade target is that the first fire engine should arrive at an incident within six minutes of being called - already in Lewisham they miss this target on more than one in five occasions (21%). With fire engines having to travel further to get to areas like New Cross and Brockley this performance can only get worse, putting lives at risk (Lewisham statistics here).

My local fire station in Queens Road in New Cross has been saving lives since it was built by the London County Council in 1894 (the picture below from Ideal Homes dates from 1903- apart from busier traffic outside it looks much the same today).  28 jobs would go there if it is closed.

With my local accident and emergency department also under threat at Lewisham Hospital I do feelthat my safety, and that of my neighbours, is being compromised. More broadly it's beginning to feel like the state is gradually withdrawing from this part of the world, at least in terms of community services and facilities, as fire stations, health services and libraries disappear!

There have already been a few meetings about saving local fire stations, including a public meeting in Peckham last November. Now the campaign will need to really get going.  The draft fifth London Safety Plan will be considered by the  London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority on 21 January 2013. A public consultation will follow, with a final decision due to be taken in June 2013.

The Fire Brigades Union has called for a 'Save our fire service' demonstration on Monday 21 January outside the LFEPA meeting, assembling 1:30 pm at the London Fire Brigade HQ, 169 Union Street SE1.

Lewisham on the agenda of BBC Question Time in New Cross

BBC's Question Time programme was broadcast from Goldsmiths great hall in New Cross tonight, with panellists including Labour's John Prescott, Tory MP Nadine Dorries, Big Issue founder John Bird,  Lib Dem Ed Davey and Times columnist Camilla Cavendish.

Before the programme got under way there was a noisy protest outside with a couple of hundred people speaking up about the biggest issue locally - the planned closure of emergency and maternity services at Lewisham Hospital.

Lewisham Hospital became the dominant issue on the programme itself. Kate Hennessy kicked off the debate by asking 'David Cameron claimed the NHS was safe in his hands, given the cuts and closures around the country is this still the case?' For this she got a huge cheer from the audience, prompting David Dimbleby to explain for the benefit of TV viewers that Lewisham Hospital services were under threat.  All the panellists mentioned Lewisham specifically, and indeed there were several mentions of the protest outside the programme. Interestingly, even Davey (a Government minister) appeared to give his backing to the campaign against closures while Dorries said: 'I hope it is saved'. A supplementary question gave full vent to local anger, explaining how the views of clinicians, GPs and the community had been ignored. Local paediatrician Dr Ajay Sharma, from the audience, criticised the Lewisham plans and the wider changes the Government was introducing into the NHS. So Lewisham Hospital is now firmly on the national policy agenda - where it belongs -  as a key test of whether the NHS is safe or not.

(see also Brockley Central report)

Don't forget next step in the campaign to save Lewisham Hospital - the demonstration on 26th January (discussed in more detail here)

Lewisham Hospital Consultation Ignored

The 'Trust Special Administrator' appointed by the ConDem government to oversee changes to health services in South London has recommended proceeding with closing not just the accident and emergency department but maternity services at Lewisham Hospital. The recommendations were included in the original consultation document issued in late October 2012, and are reiterated in the final report to Tory Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt - who will have the final say on whether or not to implement the changes.

The final report ignores the results of the consultation which were overwhelmingly against the proposed changes to Lewisham Hospital. According to the official Ipsos MORI Independent summary of the consultation: 'The consultation ran for 30 working days and received a total of 8,224 responses from stakeholders, patients, the public and health professionals... Regarding the proposed changes to urgent and emergency care, many individual respondents opposed the changes (90%), while amongst Lewisham residents (who make up a large proportion of the consultation responses received), the level of opposition rose to 96%. Overall, there was limited support for these proposed changes (eight per cent). Amongst organisations and groups responding via the response form, the majority opposed the proposed changes to urgent and emergency care (24% support vs. 67% oppose)...

A large proportion of the free-text comments provided stated that University Hospital Lewisham (UHL) should keep its Accident and Emergency (A&E) department. The reasons underpinning this were good perceptions of the UHL service and not wanting to waste money from the refurbishment; the need for a large population to be served by an A&E; seeing it as unfair to penalise UHL when it is performing well; concerns about capacity at other A&Es; concerns about travelling to other A&Es, including travel times and their impact on safety'.

As well as generating the largest demonstration seen in Lewisham for at least a generation, the changes to the local hospital have been opposed by a wide range of public, political, professional and clinical opinion. If democracy did what it said on the tin there would be no question of the plan proceeding. The overwhelming majority of people living in a borough, and many beyond, are horrified by the plans.

GPs oppose the changes

Cleary the notion that the National Health Service should respond to the views of patients is just empty rhetoric, and so too is the myth that local GPs have real influence. The GP-led Lewisham Clinical Commissioning Group also opposed the cuts to services at Lewisham Hosptial. In their response they said:
'We have concerns that for the Lewisham population the outcomes will be poorer access, a reduction in overall quality and choice, poorer health outcomes and a widening of local health inequalities... Lewisham residents, Lewisham Council and Lewisham GPs have all voiced their opposition to these proposals very clearly... The draft proposals would lead to more expensive, complicated and longer journeys for Lewisham residents. Lewisham has a diverse population with pockets of particularly high deprivation across the borough. The issue of transport is a significant one for the population many of whom are dependent on public transport and have very limited incomes.

Lewisham residents are being hit hard by the financial crisis, mainly as a result of unemployment and loss of discretionary income primarily from benefit changes and increasing fuel prices. If acutely ill patients are no longer admitted to Lewisham Hospital, this will result in increased costs incurred by relatives and carers when visiting patients admitted to alternative hospitals.  As submitted by our Director of Public Health separately: residents from deprived communities in the three most affected postcode areas (SE6 4AN, 4TW, 2BY) will experience public transport price increases of £1.90, an 82% increase in the cost of travel. These costs cannot be reimbursed under the Hospital Travel Cost Scheme. Relatives and carers forced to use private hire transport will incur far greater price increases. Residents across deprived communities in SE6 and SE13 will experience price increases of between £5.30 and £16.60...

We do not believe that the claim that 77% of patients currently seen at Lewisham A&E will be able to be catered for at the new UCC [Urgent Care Centre]. Figures from other UCCs would suggest less than 50% and possibly as few as 40% of current attendees would have their needs met by this new unit. This has implications on patient flows with significantly more patients attending other units - chiefly from our local patient surveys during this consultation period, King’s College Hospital (KCH)'.

From this moment despair ends and tactics begin

It is no great surprize that the results of the consultation have been so comprehensively ignored. The reality of high profile consultation exercises is that a controversial proposal like this would never have been put in to  the public domain without prior agreement in principle that it is going to go ahead. The likelihood that nobody in Lewisham would like it would have been factored into the decision as a manageable risk - after all nobody in Lewisham votes Conservative anyway..

The only way these proposals are going to be defeated is if the political risks to the Government spread further than they had planned.  The closure of Lewisham services needs to be raised as a national issue that shows what's really happening with the NHS, linking up with similar campaigns elsewhere such as those opposing A&E closures at Earling and Central Middlesex hospitals.

And people in other parts of South London, including in Southwark, Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich, need to be shown how the cuts at Lewisham will have a knock on effect on them by placing a greater strain on accident & emergency and maternity services in their area, as well as making them have to travel further for health care in many cases.  The Greenwich Clinical Commissioning Group response for instance notes that 'Lewisham relatives will need to visit acutely ill patients in Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Greenwich residents will need to visit patients having non-complex elective surgery in Lewisham hospital (as will Bromley, Bexley, Southwark, and Lambeth residents as the non-complex elective unit becomes more popular)'.

The next focus will be a lively protest in the lead up to the filming of BBC Question Time at Goldsmiths in New Cross this Thurday, starting at 5:30 pm.

Then there will be another Save Lewisham Hospital demonstration on Saturday January 26th, assembling at 12 noon at Lewisham Roundabout (by the station) and marching to Mountsfield Park. Details of how to get involved in building the demonstration here.

See also Crosswhatfields?; Evening Standard