Bow Group supports hospital

CHARING CROSS Hospital should be saved, the Conservative Bow Group said yesterday.

The hospital - under threat of closure by the Government - pays its way and offers the best access in west London to a 'one-stop health shop' with a unique range of specialist services, it said. The group's paper stressed Charing Cross was a centre of excellence. It had London's best equipped medical school, due to become part of Imperial College School of Medicine. Its closure, proposed by the Tomlinson Report, would mean losing 790 acute beds.

The Bow Group chairman, Nicholas Hawkins, MP for Blackpool South, said of the paper: 'I fully recommend it to those involved in policy making and suggest they pay close attention to its conclusions.'

Tom Sackville, health minister, said: 'The case put forward by the Bow Group will, of course, be considered carefully on its merits.'

(Photograph omitted)