Six Months. Two Changes Of Health Secretary. Still No Reply.
Lancashire's councillors asked the Health Secretary to call in the Ormskirk decision 175 days ago — the job has changed hands twice since, and nobody has told us if anyone's reading the letter.
On 31 March 2026, Lancashire County Council's health scrutiny committee did something rare: every councillor on it, across every party, voted the same way. They asked the Health Secretary to call in the decision to move our children's A&E to Southport. Our MP, Ashley Dalton, asked for exactly the same thing.
That was 175 days ago.
The desk has changed hands twice
The letter went to whoever held the job of Health Secretary back in March. That minister is no longer in post. Neither is the person who replaced them. A third minister now holds the brief. Nobody — not the scrutiny committee, not our MP, not the 7,840 of us who answered the consultation — has been told whether the call-in request survived any of those handovers, or whether anyone is currently looking at it at all.
We're not asking for special treatment. We're asking for a request that dozens of councillors and our own MP put in writing, five and a half months ago, to get an answer. Any answer.
They're not waiting for one
While Whitehall stays silent, the plan keeps moving. NHS bosses have confirmed Ormskirk Hospital keeps its outpatients, planned care and inpatient wards — only the children's A&E goes. They're also "exploring" upgrading Skelmersdale's walk-in centre to an urgent treatment centre. Good. But none of that answers the question that was actually put to government: has the decision itself been called in, yes or no?
The Independent Reconfiguration Panel — the official watchdog for exactly this kind of dispute — has published its review of the cases it looked at over the past year. Ours isn't on the list. That's not proof nothing is happening behind closed doors. But five-plus months of public silence, while a £33 million scheme ticks on toward a 2029 target, isn't how you reassure 7,840 families who told you, clearly and in writing, what they wanted kept at Ormskirk.
What we're asking for
We love the doctors and nurses at Ormskirk. This fight was never with them. It's with a process that asked for our opinion, was told what most of us wanted, and now can't even confirm whether anyone is reading a letter that three separate ministers have inherited in turn.
So: call it in. Whoever holds the job this week. Our kids can't wait for the next reshuffle to find out if anyone's listening.
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