Wyre Forest Labour today expressed its dismay at the decision by Worcestershire NHS to close Harvington Ward at Kidderminster Hospital from 7th November and remove yet another service from our hospital.

Stephen Brown, Wyre Forest Labour Press Officer, said “despite the consultation process in which locals stated they wanted to retain this facility for the wellbeing of the mental health services for our community, it proves it was a sham consultation because a cut is a cut is a cut however you dress it up. Local people do not want to see an erosion of this important service they value, so that those in charge can simply centralise everything for their own cost cutting budgetary reasons. Make no mistake, this is as a direct result of Tory Government underfunding of the NHS and unless this is challenged locally and nationally things can only get worse”.

Wyre Forest Labour believes we are witnessing an unprecedented attack on our National Health Service by a Government intent on running it down, starving it of cash, privatising it, and all because of their undemocratic top down reorganisation under the guise of the Health & Social Care Act which has made the NHS totally unaccountable. Mark Garnier, the Tory MP here, should be concerned about this and fighting our Hospital’s corner but instead he hides away because he knows this is what he voted for with this Act and the austerity that goes alongside it.

Stephen Brown commented further by saying “On a day that Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed with Prime Minister Theresa May over the NHS in PMQ’s, it proves Labour is right to be raising this issue and is correct when Corbyn says the Tories are ‘leaving the NHS on its knees’. Corbyn also pointed out the crisis in mental health care provision as part of his challenge to the Prime Minster – something which is acutely relevant here”.

Wyre Forest Labour are proud of the fact that Labour, after World War 2, made the NHS, and made it for everyone, and believes only a Labour Government can save the NHS for everyone because the Tories can’t be trusted with it.

Wyre Forest Labour is calling upon Worcestershire NHS to reverse this decision and not implement something they know is wrong, unwelcome, and which will erode services here even more and fracture people’s trust and confidence in NHS consultation processes. Mental health conditions can be devastating for both those affected by them, and their families. The NHS need to start listening to what services we want and not what is best for their own organisational reasons. Labour is not confident that the NHS’s plans in this regard are in the interests of our community as they are simply cost saving as a result of unacceptable Government cuts.