BUILDING a private hospital in Warwick would have a negative impact on local healthcare says Warwick and Leamington MP Chris White.
The Conservative MP has joined South Warwickshire Foundation Trust (SWFT) and University Hospital Coventry in opposing plans to build a 25 bed hospital on Tournament Fields.
Ramsay Health Care UK – which runs 36 other private hospitals – hope to start work on the £25 million building later this year if plans are given the go-ahead by Warwick District Council in the coming weeks.
But Mr White has said the site would have detrimental effect on healthcare locally, taking much-needed staff from SWFT.
He said: “The workforce implications of this proposal are particularly important as suitably qualified staff to run this facility do not currently exist other than those employed by the trust.
“The consequence would therefore be a loss of staff from the NHS and result in challenges to the sustainability of local health services.”
If the private hospital is given the green light it would include three operating theatres and a number of outpatient consultation, treatment and radiograpy rooms.
Ramsay Health Care says it would take some of the pressure off local services and that it is already helping SWFT by taking on 1,300 of their patients for MRI scans within the last year.
But SWFT told the Observer it has now purchased an extra MRI scanner which should resolve the issue.
A spokeswoman said: “The trust has had no contact from Ramsay regarding this application but their application suggests that we may be supportive due to previous activity which we sent to their Banbury site.
“The application also makes the erroneous suggestion that there is a hospital capacity problem in Coventry and Warwickshire when the converse is true. We are currently producing plans for Coventry and Warwickshire which identify the need to reduce the amount of hospital capacity as we treat more patients in ‘out of hospital’ settings.
“The addition of a further hospital in the locality would threaten the viability of local NHS sites, including Warwick Hospital and would be of great concern to us.”
