Agenda item

To receive and consider any petitions for which notice has been provided under Standing Order 66.

Members are asked to note that the following petition is due to be presented at the meeting:

(a)  Request that Brent Council’s Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee consider proposals to reduce the opening hours of Central Middlesex Urgent Treatment Centre.

To request Brent Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee to consider proposals to reduce the opening hours of Central Middlesex Urgent Treatment Centre

The Chair welcomed Zhenga Wellings-Longmore (as lead petitioner) to the meeting, who he advised was attending to present a petition requesting the Committee to consider proposals to reduce the opening hours of Central Middlesex Urgent Treatment Centre.

In thanking members for the opportunity to speak, Zhenga Wellings-Longmore advised of her roots within the Harlesden and Kensal Green community, where her grandchildren now lived and where she had three generations of family depending on services within the area, highlighting that she spoke from lived experience, memory, and a sense of responsibility for the future.

In outlining the petition, Ms Wellings-Longmore advised that she was speaking regarding the proposals to reduce the opening hours of the Urgent Treatment Centre at Central Middlesex Hospital by three hours a day, equating to 21 hours a week. She highlighted that, on the ground, that meant real people being turned away, longer journeys for people needing the service late at night, and more pressure on already overstretched services elsewhere. She reminded the Committee of the decision in 2014 when the A&E department at Central Middlesex Hospital was closed following a decision by the Health Secretary at the time, where residents had been reassured that the Urgent Care Centre would mitigate the loss of A&E and act as a safe alternative. Subsequently in 2019, she highlighted that the reassurance was weakened when the overnight service was withdrawn and the opening hours reduced, which had been reluctantly accepted by local residents who had been assured that the service would still meet local need. Now residents were being asked to accept another significant reduction, with proposals to close the centre at 9pm compared to midnight, which she felt was a fundamental erosion of access to urgent healthcare.

In continuing to outline the concerns of the petitioners, Ms Wellings-Longmore highlighted that residents did not stop becoming ill or injured after 9pm, and concluded that a late-evening urgent care service was not a luxury but a necessity. She further highlighted that Brent’s population was growing, not shrinking, so she felt it was difficult to understand why these proposals were being made following a 9.2% increase in population between 2011 and 2021, significantly higher than the national and London average. She added that the population was also ageing, with people living longer and having complex health needs. In addition, she highlighted the major developments coming on stream in Brent over the next few years in Grand Union, Alperton, Wembley Central and Neasden, where thousands more residents would move into the borough, but instead of planning for increased demand, residents were being asked to accept reduced access to urgent care.

In considering how the growing and ageing population would cope with reduced access, the petitioners highlighted that when services at Central Middlesex were cut, the pressure did not disappear but moved elsewhere, and Northwick Park Hospital A&E and Urgent Treatment Centre were already under enormous pressure. Petitioners predicted that the reduced hours at Central Middlesex would push more people towards Northwick Park, increasing waiting times and reducing the chances of people being seen quickly when they needed it most. She also foresaw that people may not go to hospital when they needed to if access became too difficult, resulting in conditions worsening when what could have been treated early became an emergency later.

Ms Wellings-Longmore affirmed that, due to the reasons outlined, the petitioners were firmly opposed to any further reduction in services at Central Middlesex Hospital, and asked for transparency, accountability and democratic oversight moving forward. The petitioners called on Brent Council to call an urgent meeting of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee so that the proposals could be properly examined, questioned and debated. In requesting this scrutiny, Ms Wellings-Longmore highlighted precedent for this, referring to the scrutiny committee consideration of changes to the service on 9 July 2019, allowing councillors and residents the opportunity to scrutinise the impact of the reduction in hours and ensure local voices were heard. They hoped for that same opportunity to be afforded now to consider the impact of the reduction on local residents.

In summing up, Ms Wellings-Longmore affirmed that the petition was about people and fairness, recognising that communities such as Harlesden, Kensal Green and the wider Brent area deserved accessible and reliable urgent healthcare, and not the slow erosion of services that residents were seeing that she felt had been cut back too far, highlighting that once services were gone it was very difficult to get them back. She expressed she made this plea for her neighbours, children and grandchildren, and people who worked late, cared for others, and relied on public healthcare. She drew her remarks to close asking the Chair to convene a scrutiny committee to consider these proposals and stand up for residents.

In response, the Chair thanked Zhenga Wellings-Longmore and others for attending the Committee to ensure the views of the petitioners were represented. In noting the request for the Committee to consider the proposals to reduce opening hours at Central Middlesex Hospital Urgent Care Centre, he confirmed that the Committee had reviewed the proposals at previous Committee meetings with senior representatives from London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust and were monitoring the impact of the changes going forward.