You choose what you write to your MP; this has been drawn up to cover many of the points people ask about. MPs can be contacted by email and by post.

We have a long and short version of a letter to the MPs here.

The short version is

Your address

 ( find your MP @They work for you)

Dear

I am writing to you as my MP. I  support keeping Liverpool Women’s Hospital at Crown Street. Please intervene to keep Liverpool Women’s Hospital fully functioning on Crown Street. I don’t care how much Spire wants the site.

As an MP, you will know about the many reports on the problems in Maternity nationally and the issues with women’s health in these years of austerity. You know about the increased risk babies face at birth in areas of poverty like Liverpool. Surely you do not support cuts to Maternity services?

The hospital needs much better funding, and all hospitals should work together cooperatively. We have a national Maternity crisis. Closing Crown Street will make things worse for all our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, lovers, and babies.

The NHS faces an appalling winter crisis in winter 24-25. Make sure the NHS is funded and equipped to save lives, not cost lives.

Hospitals should be organised as Nye Bevan intended, a cheaper more effective system than any the Thatcherites designed.

I oppose racism. In the year we have seen the worst race riots this century, closing Liverpool Women’s Hospital at Crown Street is a slap in the face for all anti-racists. That hospital is seen as a safe space. It was built not so long ago as part of the reparations for the racism of the past.

 I would like an appointment to discuss this with you.

Yours

This is the more detailed version.

 Your address

 ( find your MP @They work for you)

“Dear ……

I am writing to tell you, as my MP, just how worried I and many others, are about the situation in the NHS in Cheshire and Merseyside. We ask that you intervene.

Lord Darzi said, “The British people rely on it ( the NHS) for the moments of greatest joy – when a new life comes into being and those of deepest sorrow.”

The current plans and lack of plans for operating with this lack of resources in Cheshire and Merseyside will damage the moments of joy and increase those of deepest sorrow.

I draw your attention to the threat to Liverpool Women’s Hospital.

I have followed the meetings of the ICB and of Liverpool Women’s Hospital. The financial situation for both organisations is unacceptable. It is wrong that the place where so many babies are born is so short of the money required to operate day to day.

The start of the process of closing Liverpool Women’s hospital, from the meeting on October 9^th, is very worrying and cannot be isolated from the general crisis in the NHS. Please consider the following points

1. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is valued by the women of Liverpool and the public, with seventy-five thousand people signing the petition to save Liverpool Women’s Hospital. There have been three big rallies on this topic. The closure of this hospital will further damage the health of women and babies in Liverpool and the wider area. It is a regional maternal medicine centre. It is a tertiary referral centre for gynaecology, performing approximately 10,000 procedures per year. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is seen by the women of Liverpool and beyond as a safe place in an era of growing  violence against women and in the context of declining health amongst women, as the parliamentary report showed
2.  The CQC describes Liverpool Women’s Hospital as safe. Despite several recent visits, the CQC did not raise any of the issues raised by the ICB report of 9 October. Other issues related to staffing and safety in maternity were raised, but this is one of the safer maternity units in the country.
3. The document presented to the ICB on October 9th technically started the pre-consultation engagement about moving Liverpool Women’s Hospital services from Crown Street. Yet it gives no explanation of where our babies will be born, where gynaecology or all the other services will move to, or the indication of capital to provide alternative premises. There is no risk assessment or impact assessment.
4. Nationally and locally, the experience of women giving birth has deteriorated and this has done much damage. There is a maternity crisis in the UK following years of underfunding, understaffing and the disastrous outcomes of the 2012 Health and Care Act, as described in the Darzi report. It is widely anticipated that another heart-breaking report on Maternity services from Donna Ockendon will be published next month, this time about Nottingham. No one working in or around Maternity can deny the existence of this crisis. In this situation, women are angry. The CQC’s September 2024 report  on the maternity service nationally said https://www.cqc.org.uk/press-release/action-needed-now-prevent-harm-maternity-services-becoming-normalised
5. The staffing system at Liverpool Women’s Hospital and other NHS maternity services rests on Birthrate Plus, which urgently needs review. We need better services for the babies, the mothers and the staff. Mothers and babies need more attention, and only increased staff can deliver this.
6. Liverpool Women’s Hospital has serious financial problems,  with a deficit of 19%  recently reported. The Maternity tariff on which much of their income rests is inadequate, nationally and locally. This tariff level is a core driver of the national Maternity crisis. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is currently fully staffed with midwives, at least according to Birthrate Plus, thanks to the recruitment of newly qualified staff. As with the national service, the loss of older staff who left in disgust at the safety of the whole Maternity service leaves intense pressure on these new midwives.
7. The health of Liverpool’s babies must have priority, especially as childhood health in Liverpool, already damaged by poverty and pollution, is not mentioned.
8. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is based in Crown Street Liverpool 8. It was built as part of Project Rosemary, a gesture of reparation for the terrible racism that the area has suffered. To remove the hospital in the same year as the worst race riots in Liverpool since Charles Wooton was killed is truly a slap in the face for all anti-racists.
9. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is  one mile from Liverpool Royal Hospital; it is not “isolated.” Other branches of Liverpool Universities Hospital Foundation Trust are much further away from each other, and patients move between these buildings. The 2012 and related legislation introduced the business model, making each hospital a competing entity with other hospitals. This must change. Hospitals must work cooperatively.
10. One risk mentioned in the ICB document is that deteriorating women cannot be managed at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, yet the trust board has reported major improvements in this. No hospital can guarantee never having to move a patient to another hospital. About 10,000 such moves happen annually in the NHS. At present there is not a critical care unit (CCU) available at LWH. There is a high dependency unit (HDU) at Crown Street and staff working on the gynaecology HDU have undertaken training for critical care.
11. Another risk mentioned in the document is that other hospitals in Liverpool do not have staff to deal with pregnancy or other gynaecological conditions. This must be addressed, but not by closing Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
12.  Another risk mentioned is that services might be moved out of Liverpool if certain specifications are not met. But this report does not say where Liverpool’s babies will be born. Will that, too, be sent out of Liverpool?
13.  Risk 4 discusses recruitment and retention difficulties. Midwives at LWH face no recruitment problems. The problems with other specialities are national, not local.
14. In the weirdest contradiction, Risk 5 says, “Women receiving care from hospital services, their families and the staff delivering care may be more at risk of psychological harm due to the current configuration of services.” Closing Liverpool Women’s Hospital will definitely risk psychological harm, as the place we see as safe is taken from us against huge popular opposition.
15.  The engagement events are inadequate. Only two of these events are not in working hours, none are in North Liverpool or locally in central Liverpool. It requires time and some computer skills to register for them.

I also have serious concerns about the  NHS winter crisis 2023-24, which the ICB has been clear will not be better than last year. The ICB is underfunded ( but spends too much on financial consultants and contracts, driven to do so by NHSE.) It is also under pressure to get the Liverpool Specialist Hospitals, Liverpool Heart and Chest, Liverpool Walton Centre and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre firmly into the cash-strapped ICB control. Liverpool Women’s Hospital is also partially funded through the specialist hospitals programme and is affected by this move from national to local funding.

I recall the announcement nine years ago that one Liverpool Hospital must close, and then it was announced that Liverpool Women’s Hospital was the one they had chosen. The chaos over Liverpool Royal New build and PFI, plus the pandemic, gave some breathing space, but the coming of the ICB and NHSE’s determination to reduce the number of hospitals in Liverpool have brought this back to the table.

 I would like to discuss this with you personally.

 For all our mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, lovers and babies, Save Liverpool Women’s Hospital

 Yours