Hunt loses appeal on Lewisham Hospital

THE SAVE Lewisham Hospital campaign was jubilant last Tuesday as it announced another court victory in its battle to defeat Government plans to close the maternity and Accident and Emergency units at Lewisham as part of a plan to rescue a neighbouring NHS trust that had become bankrupt.

The campaign, which has gained massive local support and held two very big local marches in November 2012 and January 2013, fought for a judicial review of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s decision and won it in July this year. The decision to close parts of Lewisham Hospital was declared unlawful.

The Department of Health appealed against this ruling but last Tuesday it lost that appeal.

The campaign said: “We won our Judicial Review in July 2013, where the Government’s decision to close Lewisham Hospital was ruled to be unlawful.

“We were confident that the Government would lose their appeal on this decision because they were using emergency legislation in an undemocratic way to close Lewisham Hospital – a [good] hospital – without any consultation, and without any evidence to justify it.

“Today this appeal has been denied – we have won our campaign to save Lewisham Hospital.

“It’s outrageous and undemocratic that the Government are now planning to change the law to allow them to do exactly the same thing they have been found guilty of in other  NHS Trusts across the UK. If they pass that legislation in the House of Commons, the whole of the NHS will be at risk.”

The Save Lewisham Hospital campaign is now committed to helping other campaigns to fight this taking place across our NHS.