There's a chance to have your say before the NHS closes the unit to try to save money (Image: Getty images)
There are plans to close an "underused" out of hours urgent care centre in Hammersmith .
It's where you can go 24-hours-a-day to be seen urgently if your illness is not life threatening.
And, if you have strong views on that, now is the time to speak up.
Residents are to be asked what they think - there are six weeks to have a say.
The closure is one of several options which will be included in a consultation this month as the cash- strapped Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group looks to save money.
It estimates that shutting one of its two urgent care centres which are open overnight from 8pm to 8am, reducing weekend plus GP appointments from one practice to three and cutting 155 extended hours GP appointments a week, could save £1m a year.
It said it had no plans to close the urgent care centre at Charing Cross Hospital, or reduce its hours from 2am to 6am.
So, how under-used is it?
An average of seven patients are seen at the urgent care centre at Hammersmith Hospital on any night.
Of those, an average of only two need emergency or urgent care, according to the CCG.
It said the highest number of people ever turning up between midnight and 8am was 18.
So it's up and down.
But that's still a lot of people.
In 2017/18, nearly 33,000 people visited, with 47,000 patients turning up at Charing Cross, which has seen a maximum of 20 people during the midnight to 8am slot.
Now the consultation begins
The CCG has already talked to Healthwatch about the best way to consult residents about the options.
MD Janet Cree told Hammersmith and Fulham’s health and well-being board that it was not practical to send letters to every patient. That data is not available.
It has already staged a series of pre-consultation events and discussed ways it will stage the formal consultation.
The CCG’s co-vice chair, Vanessa Andreae, said patients commented at last year’s pre-consultation events that "they were not always aware of what’s available. Having a single location could reduce that complexity".
She added many of the appointments were filled by the practices’ patients.
Ms Cree said: "There is nothing determined until we get that feedback."
Have your say
Councillor Ben Coleman, who is Cabinet member for health and adult social care urged residents to respond.
The Labour politician said:"Our local NHS is under attack from government funding cuts. Almost 50 people attend Hammersmith Hospital's Urgent Care Centre overnight each week and nearly one in three of these requires urgent or emergency treatment.
"This consultation could lead to the service being closed. I urge residents to respond."
Health campaigners are demanding to know exactly what will be cut and when
The CCG buys in the health care needed in Hammersmith and Fulham but campaigners fear many services will have to be cut (Image: BrianAJackson / Getty Images) One of management groups that buys in health care for people across huge areas of West London is going to have to make savings of some £44 million, but won't yet tell people what services are to be cut.
Health campaigners have pledged to keep asking for more details about the "eye-watering" savings Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group is facing over the next two years.
Merril Hammer from health group Save Our Hospitals, has demanded the CCG open up and share information about ways it will save money.
She told its governing body meeting "to date there have been no detailed reports on what savings have been made in the current financial year and on what services have been affected in what way?"
She asked when the public will be consulted about the proposed £17m savings the CCG needs to make this financial year and the further £27m in 2019/20.
Janet Cree, the CCG’s managing director said there are plans to "engage" with the public on January 29.
Paul Brown, the chief financial officer of North West London CCGs said it has to consult on proposals such as closing the Hammersmith urgent care centre which could save £359,000 a year.
He said there were also contracts which are still running, but will be examined.
But Councillor Lucy Richardson, who chairs the council’s health, inclusion and social chair public accounts committee is also pressing for more detail.
She said residents are concerned that services could be downgraded as the CCG has been asked by health NHS England bosses to make "eye-watering" savings of £44m by 2020.
The board meeting was told that there were a range of possibilities, but the “mostly likely position is a total system deficit of £17m and most likely Hammersmith and Fulham will be adrift by £10m,” said Mr Brown.
Demand for the CCG’s services are also 10% higher than its contract.
He said: "We know it’s a challenge, but we keep on working on this problem."
But Ms Hammer said: "People need specifics."
Health campaigner Anne Drinkell also asked how many job losses were likely as the CCG looks to save money.
Chief officer Mark Easton for the group of CCGs said: “We do not anticipate a specific number of redundancies.”
He said there were a large number of vacancies and it the CCGs have already made savings by collaborating on some staff costs and half the accountable officers for the area.
He said savings will be looking “at reductions in growth”.
He told the LDR service “often these are about alternatives and cheaper options".
Closing A&E departments has led to a deterioration in the performance of those that remain in North West London. This analysis warns of the risk to patients if further A&Es are closed. Across England NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) are proposing the closure or ‘downgrade’ of up to 24 emergency departments.
This analysis shows how A&E performance has suffered across North West London following the closure of two emergency departments in 2014.
Performance against the 95% 4-hour wait target dropped to as low as 60% shortly after the closures, meaning that up to 40% of patients requiring serious treatment had to wait over 4 hours to be assessed and admitted to an appropriate bed. Since then the performance of North West London hospitals has been some of the worst in the country, sometimes managing to treat fewer than half of the patients within four hours. For time-sensitive conditions such as sepsis or respiratory failure such delays are life-threatening.
In addition, since the A&E closures in 2014 the bed occupancy rate in all hospital trusts in North West London has been above 85%, compromising clinical safety through overcrowding.
This paper also points out that the closures aggravate health inequalities, hitting the most deprived boroughs in the region.
The full paper by Dr Gurjinder Singh Sandhu can be found
Ambulances are seen at the Accident and Emergency department of St. Thomas' Hospital in London. Photograph: Getty Images.
David Cameron used to say that his priority could be summed up in three letters: NHS. Now, it seems, he prefers not to talk about it. The word in Westminster is that, on the advice of Lynton Crosby, the Prime Minister has asked his ministers for a period of pre-election silence on the NHS. So the Queen's Speechcame and went without even a mention of Mr Cameron's erstwhile priority. The list of reasons why Mr Cameron no longer wants to talk about the NHS is growing longer by the day. The last week has brought a stream of statistics confirming what many people suspect: the NHS is heading downhill under his government.
First, we learnt that the NHS missed its cancer treatment standard for the first time, leaving a growing number of people waiting longer for the start of treatment and families facing prolonged anguish.
Then, on Wednesday, came news that the deterioration in cancer care was worse than we thought and extended to people with suspected cancers waiting for tests. Waiting times for diagnostic tests are at a six-year high, with 17,000 waiting longer than they should.
Thursday brought the news that the number of people on NHS waiting lists had gone past the three million mark for the first time in six years - highly embarrassing for a Prime Minister who once said that the test of his NHS re-organisation would be its effect on waiting times.
Finally, it was revealed on Friday that A&E departments across the country are in the grip of a summer crisis, with record numbers attending and tens of thousands waiting too long to be seen. The NHS overall has now missed its A&E target for five weeks running; more worryingly, hospital A&Es have not hit it 47 weeks.
A&E is the barometer of the whole health and care system. This barometer is now clearly warning us that there are severe storms ahead for the NHS unless urgent steps are taken to put it back on track. Perhaps this explains why, after a run of negative statistics, there were reports that the government had resorted to panic measures to shore up England's hospitals.
Without any great announcement, or even so much as a press release, it emerged that large amounts of money are to be thrown at the NHS in a bid to keep further bad headlines at bay. It is not clear what the government has decided because of the lack of a clear statement. Some newspaper reports this weekend said £650m in "new money" had been found, while others believe it to be £250m. Whatever the amount, what is clear is that is that is unprecedented for a Prime Minister to have to throw millions at a summer A&E crisis. What is also clear is that, right now, the NHS is in a very dangerous position. All the signs show that it is slipping into a serious condition but it has a government in charge that is not prepared to talk about it. This is not good enough.
Minsters cannot be allowed to take such significant decisions without any explanation of why they are doing it or where the money is coming from. Cameron must order his ministers to come to the Commons early this week to answer these points.
Beyond that, there must now be a proper debate about what is happening in the NHS, why it is going wrong and what must be done to put it right. The reason why David Cameron is so desperate to avoid this debate at all costs is because it brings him back to his biggest misjudgement as Prime Minister: allowing Andrew Lansley to proceed with his ill-considered reorganisation. He was explicitly warned it would damage standards of patient care - and it has. Throwing money at the problems of his own making is no long-term solution for the NHS he has so disastrously destabilised.
David Cameron's great problem is that, though he thinks he can keep things quiet with a few bungs here and there, the public can see for themselves what is happening. They know it has for much harder to get a GP appointments. They are hearing the stories of friends and family being told that they can't have the treatment they need and facing the agonising choice of waiting in discomfort or paying to go private.
The voters are on to Mr Cameron and his damage to the NHS. Worryingly for him, a poll this week found that, for the first time in a long time, the NHS has risen to the top of voters' concerns. Storm clouds are gathering over the NHS, but it is trapped in a situation where the government of the day is not prepared to discuss them. This won't do. If they won't face up to the problems in the NHS, it's time to make way for a government that will.
Charing Cross Hospital's A&E was full this evening, what the Conservative Councillors who voted to downgrade our A&E and DEMOLISH our Hospital were thinking of? Where are we suppose to go?
"According to the #tories “Closing A & E’s will improve the quality of service.” (I suppose if we die while waiting for an ambulance, this will naturally reduce the number of people actually attending A & E).
Also according to the Tories, setting up ‘Centres of Excellence’ will improve the service you receive. Well I am attending one of these new ‘Centres of Excellence’ and where I used to wait up to half an hour to be seen by my Specialist at the hospital, I now wait up to three hours to be seen at the new ‘Centre of Excellence’. The reason given by the staff for the very long wait is, that people are now coming from all over the country and they are booking in as many people as possible."
The CCG buys in the health care needed in Hammersmith and Fulham but campaigners fear many services will have to be cut (Image: BrianAJackson / Getty Images)
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