Andrew Dismore

At today’s Mayor’s Question Time, Andrew Dismore, London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden  attacked the NHS ‘Sustainability and Transformation plan’ for North Central London, which sets out a predicted shortfall of £900 million by 2020 demanding that the full plans be properly published; and that local pharmacies be properly funded. (video here)

Mr Dismore told the Mayor:

‘The NHS funding gap for London is £4.3 billion. North Central London, which includes Barnet and Camden, alone faces a shortfall of £900 million, with an additional Local Authority funding gap for social care of £300 million. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the NHS was keeping to itself the scale of the problem, with likely cuts and downgrading of hospital services, so I am pleased that Camden Council blew the whistle on this and published the one for our area. Once Londoners get to see the details of these horrific figures, what do you think their reaction to the cuts will be?

‘Given the pitch by former Mayor Boris Johnson during the Referendum campaign, that the NHS can have an extra £350 million a week if we come out of the EU, isn’t it about time he persuaded his cabinet colleagues to honour this promise, rather than spending £400 million on more civil servants to staff the Government’s Brexit department – or are we to assume this was yet another cruel lie from his forked tongue?

‘One way of easing pressure at a time of the growing Conservatives’ winter A and E crisis, and when it takes longer than ever to get a GP appointment, is encouraging people to go their local chemists; however the Conservative Government is cutting their funding for December 2016 to March 2017 by an average of 12% compared with current levels followed by further cuts  from April 2017 of around 7.5%.

‘Pharmacy owners will inevitably be forced to reduce costs for example by reducing opening hours and staff, and stopping some services altogether. It is a stupid false economy to cut local pharmacies.’

I am pleased that the Mayor indicated that he will commit to a full consultation with the communities affected and that the proposed changes are clinically driven.

The mayor also agreed with me about the importance of local chemists, often struggling with demand, and how it was a false economy by the Government to cut them.