The performance and future of North Middlesex Hospital will be debated in parliament this week after it was branded a “scandal”.

This debate, which will take place in Westminster on Tuesday, July 12 from 2.30pm, follows after the damning details of a report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) were published which found that the hospital’s emergency services are ‘inadequate’, medical care ‘requires improvement’ and patient safety has been ‘compromised’. 

The government will be made to answer questions on the quality of care at the hospital, which has the only A&E in Enfield after Chase Farm’s department was closed in 2013.

Joan Ryan, MP for Enfield North, said: “The situation at North Middlesex Hospital is a scandal.

“The senior leadership team at the hospital, as well as the Government, has serious questions to answer about how one of the busiest A&Es in London has been allowed to reach breaking point.

“What has happened at North Mid has major implications for my constituents, residents in North London and health services across the capital and beyond."

The CQC have said unless improvements are made by August 26, they will take further action.

Health Education England has threatened to remove all 26 junior doctors working in the A&E due to the working conditions, which could cause the A&E to shut due to lack of staff.

It is the first time in the history of the NHS that an A&E unit has been threatened with closure on safety grounds.

Kate Osamor, MP for Edmonton, the constituency in which North Mid is located, said: “The rating verifies longstanding concerns about the quality of care at the hospital, which have been ignored for too long by central government.

“Urgent intervention is necessary to ensure that the urgent and emergency care services remain open and that the quality of care improves to meet the needs of patients.”

North Mid said they accept the damning report, and are already looking to make improvements, including a new clinical director beginning work on June 27, and getting five new A&E doctors on loan from another trust to boost the pressurised staff.

North Middlesex University Hospital medical director Dr Cathy Cale said: “We are extremely sorry for the current problems in A&E and for the long waiting times for some patients.

“We are committed to getting back to the standards that we and our patients expect and, working with our health partners, are taking all the necessary steps to address the concerns raised, particularly the shortage of doctors which lies at the heart of it.”

NHS hospitals are expected to see, treat and either admit or discharge 95 per cent of patients within four hours. In January North Mid was only managing this for 66 per cent of people, and in the most recent figure, for June, it reached 77 per cent.

The hospital say they expect to be back at the expected level by March 2017.