Gareth Thomas MP has welcomed the announcement that Northwick Park Hospital will get a new ward providing 23 new beds as a result of a government investment of £22.6 million.“I am delighted to hear that our campaign for more investment at Northwick Park Hospital has had a success! This new 32 bed ward will make a difference, but more investment is still essential if we’re to get our local healthcare services back to where they should be” he said.
Residents and NHS worker had signed a petition and supported the Labour campaign to improve the hospital capacity.
Also, during an intervention in the Commons, he said: “One of the ways to improve retention and recruitment of NHS staff at Northwick Park Hospital, which serves my constituency, would be to invest in doubling the number of Intensive Care beds there”.
He then asked the Health Secretary Steve Barclay, who had visited the hospital, whether he discussed the issue with Northwick Park’s chief executive and when he would announce funding for a new 60-bed unit.
According to data from London Northwest Healthcare Trust and Mr Thomas, the intensive therapy unit (ITU) had regularly averaged as high as 99 per cent of its bed occupancy.
The A&E department in Harrow is one of London’s busiest, and last winter was regularly experiencing a near total take-up of available beds.
Northwick Park hospital serves an ethnically diverse population, mainly concentrated in the London Boroughs of Brent and Harrow.
The Care Quality Commission inspection in May 2022 found that the hospital Requires Improvement. That is, ‘the service isn’t performing as well as it should, and we have told the service how it must improve’.
Harrow Monitoring Group 