The NHS Just Logged Its Busiest Summer Ever. They Still Want To Add Eight Miles.
NHS England's own summer figures show a system already stretched past capacity — exactly the system ministers want our children's A&E to travel eight more miles into.
This summer, NHS England had its busiest few months on record. That isn't campaign spin — it's their own words, published this month. Which is exactly why moving our children's A&E eight miles further away, into a system already stretched past capacity, is the wrong call at the wrong time.
The system's own numbers
NHS England's own release shows what "busiest ever" actually means in figures. Across June to August, England logged 7,268,445 A&E attendances — 241,000 more than the same three months last year. Ambulance call-outs rose by almost 133,000 over the same period. Even the good news comes with a catch: NHS England reported a "record number" of patients — 5,462,182 — seen within four hours. That record still means roughly one in four people who walked into an A&E this summer waited longer than the four-hour standard.
What that means for Alder Hey, Whiston and Aintree
These are the specialist centres our children already get sent on to when Ormskirk can't treat them. They are not quiet backups with spare capacity sitting idle. They are part of the same national system that just logged its busiest summer on record. Sending more of West Lancashire's children eight miles further from Ormskirk, into that same stretched system, doesn't create capacity anywhere. It just adds more travel time before a child in an emergency reaches care that is already under pressure.
Six months of silence
Lancashire County Council's health scrutiny committee voted unanimously, cross-party, to ask the Health Secretary to call in this decision. That vote was in late March. It is now six months later, and that request still has not been answered. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the review that was requested to actually happen before £33 million and three years of building work go into moving a service that the public consultation said, more than any other option, should stay at Ormskirk.
What we're asking for
The Health Secretary must call in the decision — now, before any work begins. Not next year. Not once Southport's own queues have grown too.
We love the doctors and nurses who work at Ormskirk. Our fight was never with them. It's with a process that named its "preferred option" before the consultation even opened, then went ahead after the public chose differently.
Sign the petition. Ask your MP where the call-in request has gone.
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