Town Hall vote fury
A MEETING at Wallasey Town Hall descended into chaos on Monday night as councillors voted to send proposals to close wards 6 and 7 at Victoria Central Hospital to the Secretary of State.The Social Care and Heath Select Committee met to scrutinise the decision of the extraordinary meeting of the Birkenhead and Wallasey and Bebington and West Wirral PCTs, held last Tuesday and voted 7:3 on a Labour and Liberal Democrat recommendation to refer the matter to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Health.
Despite union leaders claiming they are "delighted" with the outcome, after a comparatively restrained question and answer session between councillors and representatives from the PCTs, including chief executive of Wirral Hospital NHS Trust Frank Burns, relations between union members and council-lors and between the councillors themselves almost completely broke down.
In its role as scrutineer, the members of the committee do not have to vote according to the party whip and officers do not make any recommendation.
Instead the chairman, Lib Dem Pat Williams, and the spokesmen for the two other parties, Les Thomas, Conservative, and Denise Roberts, Labour, conducted two meetings where a recommendation was thought to have been agreed.
However, when the recommendation was presented Cllr Thomas claimed he had not agreed it, having had the intention of taking it back to his party and the unions for further discussion.
He presented a second recommendation which was only supported by the Conservative members.
TGWU representative David Laird said: "We are thoroughly delighted with the decision.
"There hasn't been a split in the political parties up to this point and we weren't happy to see it turn into a political argument."
In a statement: "The PCTs will now await a final decision from the Secretary of State for Health."