HEALTH Secretary Andrew Lansley is to announce plans to close the accident and emergency department at Chase Farm hospital, reports in the national press suggest.

A number of national newspapers have reported

that the Tory MP for South Cambs has been told the A&E and maternity unit at the Enfield hospital should be shut down.

Mr Lansley has pledged to end “top-down” NHS closures but it is believed that advice from the Government’s Independent Reconfiguration Panel will put pressure on him to approve the plans.

The Independent Reconfiguration Panel has looked at almost 500 pages of documents that outlined views on merging the departments at Chase Farm with North Middlesex and Barnet hospitals.

The papers also contained 10 recommendations from Enfield Council. These included a demand that Chase Farm is not downgraded.

The proposals were first referred to the panel in 2007 which subsequently recommended that the hospital should be downgraded.

But public and political pressure led to the decision being stalled and when the coalition Government took power, the plans were stopped. The case was referred back to the panel in April.

Source: Hertfordshire Mercury