Last updated at 11:46, Tuesday, 12 March 2013

JOHN Woodcock MP has urged health ministers to rethink the scale and speed of cuts they are imposing on local hospitals at a meeting with MPs in Westminster.

Mr Woodcock spoke out as health professionals at the meeting with minister Dan Poulter warned it would be difficult to find £30m of cuts from the operating budget of Morecambe Bay hospitals trust within two years without damaging the quality of patient care.

Mr Woodcock said: “I am asking ministers to rethink the speed and scale of the cuts the Conservative-led government is imposing on our local hospitals - it is incredibly hard to see how you could cut £30m within two years without harming patient care.

“Local hospital managers are rightly focused on ways they can make efficiencies, but professionals at the meeting made clear it will be very difficult to inflict such deep cuts without hurting the frontline.

“The minister pointed to areas that reductions could be made safely but he needs to be prepared to step in when they prove insufficient to meet the scale of the cuts needed in such a short timeframe.”

Mr Woodcock also raised the danger of downgrading Furness General’s maternity unit, highlighting the fact that 68 women in labour last year required a ‘category one’ emergency Caesarian last year.

A category one is defined as needing urgent treatment within half an hour - half the time it would take to travel from Barrow to Lancaster hospital in an ambulance.

First published at 11:45, Tuesday, 12 March 2013
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk