Whether or not Boris Johnson sells off big chunks of the NHS to Donald Trump, a far more certain threat hangs over the present hospital services of Southport. Regardless of he distraction of the General Election, NHS planners continue to work on options which could bring radical change here.
Southport Lib Dem Candidate John Wright has uploaded a video onto YouTube explaining the options being considered by health chiefs to change how Southport and Formby residents get most of their hospital services. NHS bosses believe that they cannot keep both Southport and Ormskirk hospitals going on the way they are now.
Labour took almost half of Southport’s hospital services away from the town in the 1990s and it looks like, without a real fight, the whole lot could well now go shortly after the general election.
John Wright, who is recruiting local residents to campaign to keep the main hospital in Southport – and bring back maternity and children services which were taken away by the last Labour government – identifies Cllr John Fillis, Labour’s top councillor in this area, as being the power behind a plan to build a new hospital in Skelmersdale to serve the whole area presently being served by a split-site (Southport and Ormskirk) hospital. Labour parliamentary candidate Liz Savage served as a fellow councillor with John Fillis for years but recently gave up her council seat.
But other senior Labour politicians locally are backing other proposals which, while all taking hospital services away from Southport, do not go quite so far.
Labour’s Rosie Cooper MP wants the services all kept in Ormskirk. While Sefton Central Labour MP Bill Esterson MP has given backing to a new hospital somewhere between Southport and Ormskirk. https://issuu.com/championnewspapers/docs/f3218_d4656a88ea5b38
Rosie Cooper shows on her election website that in any battle she will be putting all her Labour resources behind Ormskirk, rather than Southport being the main hospital site for this area: “I believe passionately in our NHS, and am committed to continuing to fight off any threat to the future of Ormskirk hospital. . . . “
All three of these Labour proposals would involve closing down all or most of the present Southport hospital. The NHS planners who will make the decision are keeping their cards tight to their chest.
In the Conservative camp, Damien Moore does not appear to have taken any stand on the side of Southport hospital in this secret battle. While senior Conservative councillor Sir Ron Watson spoke a few weeks ago of a possible siting of a new hospital near Formby. Local Lib Dems, however, are committed to fight for the hospital to be retained and expanded in Southport and JohnWright believes that this can be done.
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