The Worst July On Record — And That's Where They Want To Send Our Kids
Brand new NHS figures show July 2026 was the worst month for A&E waits since records began — and the trust running Southport, where they want to move our children's emergency care, is already missing its own four-hour target.
New numbers landed this summer. They should stop this decision in its tracks.
July 2026 was the worst July for A&E waiting times since records began. Across England's major emergency departments, just 54.1% of patients were seen, treated and either admitted or discharged within four hours. That means 45.9% waited longer — and 24.3% of patients waited more than eight hours to be seen. This isn't a one-off blip. It's the direction of travel, and it's getting worse every year.
The trust they want to send our kids to is already missing its own target
Southport Hospital — the site the joint committee picked over Ormskirk despite the consultation — sits inside Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, alongside Whiston, St Helens, Newton and Ormskirk itself. NHS England's own June 2026 data for that trust shows 25,424 A&E attendances, with just 72.6% completed within four hours. That's more than one in four patients already waiting longer than they should — before a single extra child is sent the extra eight miles from Ormskirk.
We love the doctors and nurses who work these shifts. They are stretched, not slacking. Our fight isn't with them — it's with the people who signed off a plan to add more pressure to a system that's already buckling, while ignoring 7,840 of us who said keep it local.
Minutes matter more when everyone is already waiting
Ormskirk's children's A&E currently runs 8am–midnight. It sits 10–20 minutes closer than Southport to the specialist centres at Alder Hey, Whiston and Aintree that sick children sometimes need to reach fast. Moving the front door further away doesn't just cost families a longer, more frightening drive in an emergency — it adds journeys onto ambulance crews and hospital staff who are already dealing with the worst July on record.
A joint committee approved this move on 13 March 2026: £33 million, three years minimum, targeted for 2029. Lancashire County Council's health scrutiny committee voted unanimously, cross-party, to ask the Health Secretary to call it in. West Lancashire MP Ashley Dalton asked for it to be reversed. That request is still sitting unanswered.
What we're asking for
We're not asking for a miracle. We're asking the Health Secretary to do the one thing that's within his power right now: call in this decision before a single spade goes in the ground. Look at the consultation results. Look at where the ambulances are already queuing. Then decide whether adding eight more miles, and more pressure on an already-stretched trust, is really the right call.
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