§ Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will undertake to maintain Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, in its present state of full operational efficiency.
§ Mr. Alison,pursuant to his reply [OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th June 1973]; The text of the letter is as follows:
Hugh Jenkins, Esq., MP.
19th June 1973
Dear Hugh,
Last Friday you asked Keith Joseph if he would undertake to maintain Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton in its present state of full operational efficiency, and I said I would write to you.
A short but accurate answer to your question would be that we do undertake to maintain Queen Mary's Hospital in its present state of operational efficiency for the foreseeable future. Indeed we expect to take opportunities for improving some of its facilities, in particular the operating theatres over the next few years. We should not he doing this if we thought the hospital had no future.
However, I think it will be more helpful to you and your constituents if I answer your question at greater length. There are three major aspects in any current consideration of the general question of the future of Queen Mary's: the service it will provide until, say the late 1980s, its management in 1974 and its long-term future.
Taking first the service provided by Queen Mary's I can state categorically that no proposals to close the hospital have been put forward or are indeed being considered and there is every reason to expect that it will continue to provied a district service for a number of years to come. As I said earlier in this letter, there may well be changes in exactly what services are provided and the facilities supporting these services. I have already quoted our wish to 148W improve the operating theatres; you will know that an acute psychiatric unit opened at Roehampton last year; three years earlier the Professorial Obstetric Unit was opened. Changes such as this have been taking place over the past few years and will continue to be made in the next few years.
On the question of management, the only thing which can be said for certain is that, if the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill becomes law, there will be a change in the overall administration of Queen Mary's. The Board of Governors of Westminster Hospital who currently manage it will be dissolved on 31st March next year and the hospital will come under the administration of the new Area Health Authority. The detailed day to day management of the hospital will not be decided upon until the pattern of districts in the Area is settled, which will be some time in the autumn. The main point to remember, however, is that the changes in management should have no detrimental effect on the service provided by the hospital to patients—this will go on as before.
The long-term future of the hospital is the third aspect of its future, and I must emphasise that in this context I am using the word long-term to describe a period starting well into the 1980s. We are talking here about possible rebuilding of the hospital, and the need for health services in Roehampton in the 1990s and the next century. In the present climate of reorganisation consideration of these questions will take a long time and I cannot, therefore offer an early decision on the long term pattern of hospital services for Roehampton. All I can do at this stage is to assure you that no major change in the present pattern will take place without very full local consultation.
I am making arrangements for this letter to be published in HANSARD.
Yours ever, MICHAEL ALISON.