With “immense pressure” being placed on both Queen’s and Whipps Cross Hospitals’ A&E departments, the council have agreed to ask the NHS to urgently review services in East London.
Members called for a review of A&E services to ensure patient safety and service quality, and a delay on any further bed closures within Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Trust until this is carried out.
Cllr Stuart Bellwood said: “The demand is overwhelming Queen’s. When the hospital was first planned, an inaccurate estimate of how many people would be using it was set at 90,000 people per year, now it is around 150,000. It has got out of hand.”
Cllr Andy Walker added: “We should be demanding more doctors and more beds. If we don’t ask we don’t get.”
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