Hospitals should close says RCN chief

 Chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr Peter Carter, has urged ministers to be “brave” when it comes to closing down acute hospitals in urban areas.

Dr Carter acknowledged there would be short-term political risks to doing this, as public opinion is always against hospital closures, but he said there needed to be a “paradigm shift”.

He made the comments to a private meeting of the Reform think tank, according to The Times newspaper.

He reportedly said: “In our metropolitan areas we have far too many acute hospitals. That's a drain on the system and it has got to change.

“Some of those hospitals that we have known and loved, and which were performing appropriately in their day, are no longer appropriate.”

Taking the politics out of health service decisions was one of the original aims of the Lansley reforms, but under the amended version of them, he will keep the responsibility for major decisions and the duty to “secure or provide” adequate care.