Tories would abolish plans to cut Chase Farm services, vows Cameron
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| David Cameron speaks to reporter Dominic Gover (right) |
DAVID Cameron made a flying visit to Chase Farm hospital on Thursday and vowed that a Conservative government would abolish plans to cut its services.
Flanked by grass roots activists and MPs, the Tory leader laid out a vision for the NHS, where decisions about medical services are delegated away from Whitehall bureaucrat, to medical professionals.
Mr Cameron said: "The cut backs and closures at this hospital are completely unjustified, and if the Prime Minister calls a November 1 election we will put a stop to them on November 2.
"I think the idea that you cannot keep a maternity unit that's got three thousand babies born in it a year is completely wrong.
"The idea we should be shutting Accident and Emergency (A&E) and asking people to travel further is also wrong."
He claimed plans to cut the A&E department, and maternity services "will put lives at risk", and aligned his party with residents fighting to retain them on site.
Mr Cameron said: "We are right behind you. There is no justification for what is happening here. Hospitals like Chase Farm are valued by people and we want to keep them."
The PM hopeful's visit to the hospital, in the Ridgeway, came about after Nick De Bois, who has fought the Enfield North seat in recent elections, approached him at the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool last week.
And following on from his well received Blackpool speech, Mr Cameron used the example of Chase Farm to heap scorn on the government's policy.
He said: "The changes have been imposed from above, are based on faulty analysis and are not welcomed by residents.
"What we need is not a system of top-down cuts, endless re-organisations, and endless re-configurations, which is what we keep getting from this government.
"What we need is to give more power and control to general practitioners, give them their budgets, and actually let hospital services develop in response to that, rather than some blueprint imposed from Whitehall."
David Burrowes, Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate, also attended the event, along with Nick De Bois, and Broxbourne Tory MP Charles Walker.
Activists unfurled a party political banner opposing changes to Chase Farm's services.
11:22am Friday 5th October 2007
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