Cable Tells Parliament that St John's Closure would be "Act of Vandalism"

3.18.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 14th Jan 2008

On Tuesday Vincent Cable, MP, has secured a full debate with a minister on the threat to the future of Twickenham's hospital for the elderly mentally ill - Marble Lodge, part of St John's Hospital.

The local Primary Care Trust (PCT) is currently putting the service out to tender because it regards the cost quoted by the provider, the mental health trust of SW London, as excessive. Carers, led by Paul Lamplugh, fear that the tendering process will, almost inevitably, lead to the loss of the facilities which provides specialist services to very challenging patients. Vincent Cable has supported carers and is very critical of the way the PCT and the mental health trust have dealt with the issue:

"We are talking here about a much admired, specialist, NHS facility which was only constructed 12 years ago and is now expected to close. The closure, if it occurs, will go contrary to government policy. It also goes contrary to the findings of a careful review, and public consultation, on health services in 2006 conducted at borough level. The rush to close the unit is driven by one of the most short-sighted, cost cutting exercise I have seen. The most likely outcome is that instead of the very thoughtful and caring approach at St John's, the patients (and future patients) will be bundled off to an old folk's home, and drugged to the eyeballs so that they make no trouble until they die off".

"I shall be appealing to the minister to put a stay on the process until the government's own plan for transferring services for the elderly mentally ill is published in the summer and there is a better mechanism for assessing the quality of service and more sensible ways of calculating costs".

"To push ahead with closure would be an act of vandalism".