§ 6.40 p.m.
§ LORD AUCKLAND rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the deplorable condition of the site of the former Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street, Chelsea, and what plans they have in mind with regard to the future of this site at a time of acute shortage of hospital facilities. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I can assure the House that I shall not detain your Lordships for many minutes. I have put down this Question because of the great concern, particularly in the neighbourhood of Chelsea and Kensington, about the condition of the site in question. I would first of all declare what is an academic interest in this matter, in that for several years I served on the house committee of this particular hospital. My father was for 25 years chairman of the hospital, and his father before him was chairman for a number of years. I should also say that, due to the courtesies of this House, I have been in contact with my honourable friend the Member of Parliament for Chelsea, in whose constituency this hospital is situated.
§
On March 9 1965 (at col. 11 of the OFFICIAL REPORT) I asked Her Majesty's Government this Question:
what plans they have in mind in respect of the building which was until recently the Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street, Chelsea."
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor (I gave him notice that I should mention his name in
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the course of this debate), answered that there was
a proposal that the site of this building should be used for the rebuilding of a convent, the present site of which will be needed for the proposed grouping of postgraduate teaching hospitals in Chelsea. The convent are still considering how best they can use the site at Tite Street. Provided that no unforeseen complications arise, the existing buildings will be demolished, probably later this year.
That was said in 1965. In another place yesterday, the honourable Member for Chelsea put down a similar Question to the Government and the Minister of Health gave the answer that the buildings would probably be finally demolished at the end of this year.
§ I should like to assure the House that I do not propose to make any political point out of this matter. The hospital itself was closed at the instigation of my right honourable friend the Member for Wolver Hampton, South-West, Mr. Powell, when he was Minister of Health, despite a number of local representations that the hospital was serving a useful purpose. The hospital has moved to Tooting, where it is planned that eventually the St. George's Hospital, in whose group it is situated, will be moving. I should add that the hospital has settled down extremely well. The children are very happy, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Crook, who lives very near the area, will bear out. I have myself been to see this hospital and I should like to assure the House that they are being very well looked after.
§
My main concern, so far as this Question is concerned, is the present condition of the site. This hospital was founded in the reign of Queen Victoria. It has served an extremely useful purpose—my own two daughters have been patients there, and a number of the staff were not only great personal friends of my father but great personal friends of myself. But I have not put down this Question purely for parochial reasons. I would quote briefly from a letter which was sent to me from a member of the Epsom and district branch of the Royal College of Nursing, who I believe was formerly attached to this hospital. She writes:
Since closure, sick children from this area"—
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that, of course, is the Chelsea area—
have to be conveyed to Tooting, causing additional expenditure of money and time for visiting parents. Only last week a distraught mother with a very sick child was horrified to find the hospital closed and had to continue her journey to Tooting. Since closure, tramps have broken in and have defiled the building and now a demolition squad is at work.
I went to look at the building three weeks ago, and can bear out that what this lady says is basically true. The windows were out, the roof was half on and half off, there were pools of water everywhere—admittedly, it had been raining—and the whole building was nothing short of a disgrace. I am not an expert on building, but I should have thought the demolition of a building of this nature could be completed in under six months, and there are already signs of the demolition contractor—who comes from Surrey—outside the hospital. I understand that the right honourable gentleman the Minister of Health has confirmed in another place that demolition is going on. The matter has been raised on the Kensington Borough Council, and they too are very concerned about it.
§ I should like to put one specific question to the noble Lord who is to reply, and who has had a good deal of experience in the field of social welfare and hospital welfare. I am sure he will give the most sympathetic consideration to this question. Will he convey to his right honourable friend the need to make certain that when hospitals are closed in future this kind of situation dose not happen again, and that everything is done to ensure that the site is taken up as soon as possible; or, at any rate, to see that the condition of the site is not allowed to deteriorate to that of the present site at Tite Street? The shortage of hospitals and hospital accommodation is well known to noble Lords on all sides of the House, and in these days of desperate shortage of hospital beds it is essential that this situation is not allowed to recur. I would ask the noble Lord to give very special attention to this matter.
§ Children's hospitals are all too few in this country, and the Victoria Hospital has served an extremely useful purpose. The St. George's Group is, of course, one of the best known hospital groups in the 1753 country, and I understand that this particular site is in this condition mainly because of legal difficulties. I understand that a convent is to be erected on the site, but this has to wait until the convent's present premises have themselves been dealt with suitably. There may well be very reasonable reasons for the present condition, but I would again ask the noble Lord to do all he can to ensure that events of this kind are not repeated as old hospitals inevitably close in future.
§ 6.49 p.m.
§ LORD SORENSENMy Lords, I would assure the noble Lord who has just resumed his seat that in all quarters it is very deeply appreciated that his family has given such devoted service to this hospital for over half a century. Equally, I am quite sure that all of us recognise that the motive which has led him to raise this matter to-night is not drawn from any partisan source at all, but is due to the very deep concern that he has for this particular institution. Of course, on his part, the noble Lord recognises that the whole matter involves not only the present Minister of Health but also a Conservative Minister of Health. In these matters there is no need for partisanship, but only for genuine concern with what best can be done in the matter.
I will certainly convey to the Minister of Health what the noble Lord has said, and I am sure he will do all he can to avoid a repetition of this misfortune in similar cases; apart from which, I am equally certain that the Minister of Health will himself be reading the Report of this debate. I believe that in another place there has been extensive discussion on the matter. I only hope that anything I say this evening will not contradict in any way what has been said there, but will fortify it.
My Lords, the Victoria Hospital for Children, as we all know, was a hospital which formed the children's department of St. George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner. It provided beds, I understand, for 109 paediatric patients, and served as a centre for patients not only from Chelsea but also from a large area South of the Thames. It was closed in late 1964, after full consultation with local organisations with a particular interest in the services it 1754 provided. The hospital facilities which had been available in the Victoria Hospital for Children were transferred, as the noble Lord has indicated, to St. George's Hospital, Tooting. The then Minister estimated, I understand, that there could be saving on the running costs of the hospital of about £50,000 annually.
The accommodation there consists of old buildings which have been very effectively and attractively converted for the use of the children, and I understand there is no complaint at all on that score. On the contrary, from the information I have there is every indication that this transfer has been, so far as the children are concerned, highly beneficial. They are on a part of the site on which the new St. George's Hospital will be built. The children's department will be in the first stage of the new buildings, and we hope that their construction will start in 1969. Before he agreed to the closing of the Victoria Hospital, the Minister of Health at the time was thoroughly satisfied that the remaining hospitals within reasonable distance of the Victoria Hospital were able to provide adequately for the children in the Chelsea area.
The buildings of the Victoria Hospital are at present being demolished. I understand that at one time it was suggested, if not agreed, that the buildings might be needed temporarily by St. George's Hospital Medical School. That is one reason, perhaps, why there was a suspension of the demolition. However, this was abandoned, and then, of course, the way was clear for demolition. In the meantime, the site, I agree, has assumed the wretched appearance to which the noble Lord referred—partly, I think, due to vandals. In such cases, unfortunately—all too unfortunately—vandals sometimes take advantage of the derelict nature of buildings in order to demolish them or make them worse. This is part of the vandalism which is all too prevalent in some parts of our metropolis. I well understand the deep feeling of the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, at the demolition of a hospital to which he and his family, as I have said, have given such long and valuable service. He must have a feeling of deep melancholy when he realises the service the hospital has rendered in the past and sees the forlorn appearance it presents to-day.
1755 The planned use for this site will be of great value to the hospital service, although only indirectly. As noble Lords are aware, we intend to continue with the plans of the previous Administration to bring together on a single site in Chelsea six post-graduate teaching hospitals and their associated institutes. The Hospital Building Programme which was presented to Parliament in May of this year shows that, according to present plans, a start to the building of the new post-graduate centre will be made in the period after 1969–70.
In the middle of the site on which these post-graduate hospitals are to be rebuilt there is a convent, and the land which it occupies is essential to the completion of the rebuilding scheme. The noble Lord referred to this point, I know: it is merely for the sake of completing the whole picture that I am more or less repeating, or amplifying, what he said. The only way in which we can acquire the site of the convent by agreement is to provide an alternative site, and since the convent authorities wanted to carry out extensive and costly works of modernisation and adaptation to their existing buildings, it was desirable that the alternative site should be offered to them as soon as possible. We have therefore offered them the site of the Victoria Hospital, and are at present negotiating the exchange of land with them.
We are satisfied that to use the land in this way is in the best interests of the hospital service as a whole, and that the site is not required for purely local hospital purposes. Although there is no pressing need for additional hospital services in this area, post-graduate hospitals treat some of the people living in the districts in which they are situated, as well as those from further a field. In the long term, therefore, the use of the site of the Victoria Hospital in the way we propose will help materially to improve the hospital services for the local population. I want to thank the noble Lord, quite sincerely, for raising this matter. By doing so, he has drawn attention to this serious situation, and I hope and believe that his words of admonition for the past and encouragement for the future will be borne in mind.
§ LORD AUCKLANDMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for his 1756 very helpful and courteous reply, which will no doubt be studied with great care and interest.