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§ Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark and Bermondsey)I wish to present a petition on behalf of more than 4,000 people who are worried about the South East Thames regional health authority's plans to close the physiotherapy schools at Guy's hospital in my constituency and at St. Thomas's hospital in the constituency of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland), who supports the petitioners, as I do.
The two schools of physiotherapy are rightly renowned for their excellence. The number of signatories to the petition and the amount of correspondence received not only by me and the hon. Member for Vauxhall but by many hon. Members pay tribute to the reputations of those schools in the eyes of their present and former students. Quite apart from the wisdom of closing two schools with a proven record to set up a new and untried department on the south coast, the petitioners are worried that this relocation can do nothing but increase the acute shortage of physiotherapists in London, where already 12.8 per cent. of posts are unfilled.
The petition concludes:
we wish to express our extreme concern at the proposals adopted by South East Thames Regional Health Authority, to close the schools of physiotherapy at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals. We believe this will result in a deterioration of the standard of patient care currently available in the region, and further exacerbate the existing shortage of staff in the capital.Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House will note our concern and seek to oppose these proposals.That is my wish and that of the petitioners and the hon. Member for Vauxhall.
§ To lie upon the Table.