Conservative scrutiny councillors refuse vote to discuss option of two A&E's for Central Lancashire

Conservative councillor Pope says no to 2 A&E option

Conservative Health scrutiny councillors at Preston county hall have refused a vote to further debate an option of having two A&E's for Central Lancashire under a health change program.

Over the last two years a local health change program titled 'Our Health Our Care' [OHOC] run by local commissioning groups has been gathering feedback from public engagement events in venues across Chorley, South Ribble and Preston.

In response to government NHS underfunding and staff shortages, the public engagement events were established to build a picture of what people wanted for future healthcare and more importantly what they would tolerate in terms of reconfiguration of services.

Removing Chorley & South Ribble hospital A&E was not dicsussed throughout the events and in March 2017 the program suddenly ceased. Then in July 2018 the 'Our health Our Care' program suddenly started up again.

This time there came a shock announcement from the OHOC team that they were looking at a proposal for having only one single A&E for the whole of Central Lancashire which covers Chorley, South Ribble and Preston.

The program team didn't say which A&E (Chorley or Preston) was being kept open but the idea of a super-hospital touted earlier in the local press wasn't on the program agenda.

Outraged at the proposal, the local Labour councillors on the health scrutiny committee at Lancashire county hall submitted a recommendation that the option of having an A&E at Chorley AND Preston be included in the public consultation starting after next years elections.

Bizarrely, the recommendation - which would have at least put the option of both A&E's on the table - was voted out by Conservative councillors, with no valid reason given. Here's what happened. The recommendation came via Cllr S. Holgate [Lab].

recommendation as read out: the HSC believe the OHOC document needs to be revised prior to consultation to include the option of there being 24/7 A&E provision on both the Preston and Chorley sites.

P. Britcliffe [Con]: Chair "I don't intend to have a protracted discussion on this so I will bring in county councillor Pope [Con] and then I'm going to take the vote".

Cllr pope... "I don't agree it's a good option....the trust & ccg are going through consultation and further consultation when they come up with the full ideas of the way forward,, and I wouldn't want their hands to be tied in any way in looking at that [two A&E's option] and the various options er going forward. therefore I would not support that recommendation".

It's unsure why Cllr Pope thought the CCGs hands would have been tied since it is the health scrutiny committee who should be scrutinising on BOTH options and debating which site may be preferred,. By voting down the recommendation the scrutiny councillors were refusing their constituents a debate on who gets which A&E service. A disgraceful state of affairs since it means the Chorley A&E may now no longer be an option during the consultation.

After councillor pope had shunned the recommendation, the chairman, cllr P. Britcliffe, then asks "what is the procedure for a recorded vote"?

The vote was then taken 6 against [Con], 3 For [Lab], and 1 Abstention [Green party]

All options on the table?
Ludicrously, Conservative county councillor Charlie Edwards then proceeded to thank and commend those who spoke to us today and that 'all options are on the table"....

Clearly not all options were on the table, as Cllr Edwards' Conservative party colleagues had just removed the option of debating and scrutinising the reasons why there can't be two A&E's to serve central Lancashire.

I'm sure the Conservative councillors constituents will have something to say about that....

Thanks to the Labour scrutiny councillors for proposing and supporting the recommendation to fight for a 24 hour A&E at both Preston and  Chorley Hospitals.

The webcast of the health scrutiny meeting can be viewed on the councils website: