| More to follow + offical press release. For now: 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. GOVERNMENT vs. LEWISHAM COUNCIL & SAVE LEWISHAM HOSPITAL CAMPAIGN COURT NOTES By Tony O’Sullivan (Day 1, Monday 28th October) As most of us know, Lewisham Council and Our Save Lewisham Hospital Campaign took Jeremy Hunt, Sec of State for Health and Matthew Kershaw, TSA to Judicial Review (JR) in defence of Lewisham Hospital and we won on 31 July. Jeremy Hunt has not been man enough to recognise that the reason we won our JR victory was because he truly had acted unlawfully – ‘ultra vires’ (beyond his powers) – and had ignored the key views of the local GP Commissioners, Lewisham CCG and the community. So three weeks later at the eleventh hour he appealed August 21 and we were back at the High Court on 28th October. Feeling very confident having seen that the Government arguments for the appeal were saying nothing new, we were not surprised, that Hunt’s team has tabled an amendment to the new Care Bill (in itself nothing to do with NHS reconfiguration whatsoever) to give himself the two crucial powers he lost the JR on. The amendment went through the House of Lords on 22 October. They are intending to accelerate its passage in the Commons. It allows a TSA in future to go into a trust in crisis and make decisions about any other trust the TSA sees fit. And the TSA can now IGNORE local CCG opinion about the service changes proposed if the TSA can claim that the relevant CCG is ‘outvoted’ by neighbouring CCGs. So how about that for a short lesson in democracy? Day 1 in court essentially was such a re-run of July 2-4 that we could cut and paste court notes from then. However, this is the Court of Appeal, with Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Dyson leading a bench of three Lord Justices, alongside LJ Sullivan and LJ Underhill. Trepidation began to dissipate as the Government line hit trouble from the start. It seems to me that the Appeal judges were incredulous at the Government argument relying on a meaning of the legislative phrase ‘in relation to the trust’ (ie South London Healthcare Trust) to ‘empower’ the TSA to make changes in any other trust ie including Lewisham. The Govt team was asked, if that were so would it not imply changes could be made anywhere in the country. The barrister replied: ‘We dont shrink from that.’ The Govt barrister decided to ‘make the Court aware’ of the Government amendment passed through the Lords on 21 October. LJ Dyson replied: ‘It is of NO relevance’ to this court. Arguing against Lewisham CCG being the ‘local GP commissioners’ relevant to the decision on Lewisham, the Govt barrister was responded to by LJ Sullivan: ‘When it says GP Commissioners it means LOCAL commissioners’ and he said it would be ‘barmey’ if it meant otherwise. The judges seemed clear that Lewisham CCG are the local commissioners and the commissioners for the majority population affected. For our joint defence, QC Elizabeth Laing, Lewisham Council’s barrister was excellent. She made clear the partnership between our two teams, Council and Campaign. She went through our main defence of the vires and local CCG point, first of ‘The Four Tests’, in clinical fashion! Back to court today to complete Laing’s submission followed by the Campaign’s barrister David Lock, briefed by Leigh Day Solicitors. I will report on events today in due course. Government puts amendment to Care and Social Care Bill The amendment would give Trust Special Administrators (TSAs) much greater powers when running NHS Trusts, and crucially would allow their decisions to change services arbitrarily in neighbouring Trusts. To read a press statement from Save Lewisham Hospital lawyers, Leigh Day. Click here http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Lawyers-for-Save-Lewisham-react-angrily-to-Government-press-statement-16.10.13.pdf Letter from Lord Howe re Amendment Click here http://www.savelewishamhospital.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Letter-from-Earl-Howe-15-October-1.pdf Open Democracy comment from Jos Bell Click herehttp://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/jos-bell/fast-track-hospital-closures-tagged-onto-care-bill |