The race from London to Surrey and back, on Saturday July 28, will bring almost total gridlock due to the large number of road closures.
South west Londoners will struggle to attend a major meeting on the future of local hospitals because it is scheduled on the Olympic cycle race day.
The Olympic race from London to Surrey and back, on Saturday July 28, will bring almost total gridlock due to the large number of road closures.
On the same day, NHS managers are scheduling the borough’s only ‘road-show’ – a 14-week public consultation on the downgrading of Hammersmith and Charing Cross hospitals.
Cllr Marcus Ginn, Hammersmith & Fulham Council cabinet member for community care, said: “We knew these NHS bureaucrats were out of touch but this is wildly incompetent even by their standards.”
In H&F the roads around and including Fulham Road and Fulham High Street will be almost totally impassable for the whole weekend.
Chelsea & Westminster Hospital will be almost impossible to use on the very day that residents are invited to discuss the closures of the two most accessible A&Es.
Cllr Ginn said: “If the NHS wanted to pick the one date when the fewest number of people are likely to be able to attend then they have succeeded.”
Many people will be out of town and the few that are still here will have problems getting around.
H&F Council demands that north-west London NHS – which is proposing to close four A&E’s in the area – arrange another meeting for residents after the Olympics.
Dr Mark Spencer, who is leading the downgrade plans for the NHS, admitted that views of local people will not make a difference.
Speaking at the launch of the consultation he was asked whether petitions or the anti-closure campaign could make a difference.
Dr Spencer said: “No. People are currently wedded to mediocre services.
“If we don’t do this then people need to realise that our hospitals will go bankrupt.”
To sign petitions and for more information about the campaign to save services at local hospitals please visit www.savehammersmith.com and www.savecharingcross.com or visit www.lbhf.gov.uk
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