HC Deb 22 December 1988 vol 144 cc403-4W
Mr. Dykes

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the future of the royal national orthopaedic hospital, Stanmore.

Mr. Mellor

The royal national orthopaedic hospital at Stanmore provides an unrivalled centre of orthopaedic expertise, and we are anxious to safeguard its national role and to ensure that it continues to maintain the standards of excellence for which it is world famous. The hospital draws most of its patients from the area in which it is situated, and so, in order to improve its links with the local community, I have asked the regional health authorities concerned to seek the views of all interested parties with a view to moving the management responsibility for the hospital from Bloomsbury to Harrow.