Calder Valley MP admits he doesn’t know what will happen with our A&E

The Conservative MP for Calder Valley wrote in his Talking Politics column in last week’s Courier that “there are absolutely no proposals to close our A&E here in Calderdale” and accused his Labour opponents of “using scaremongering tactics, fear and outright lies when they talk about the NHS locally.”

However, in an online conversation between this reporter and Mr Whittaker on social networking site Twitter, he admitted that he didn’t actually know what decision health commissioners would be making.

The conversation played out as follows:

Craig Whittaker MP ‏@CraigWhi2kermp

@HxCourierJon hospitals in2 communities! Can’t say I’ve heard you be positive about extra stuff. But at least you’v stopped saying closure!

Jon Cronshaw ‏@HxCourierJon

@CraigWhi2kermp - so the A&E will remain at the same level, or better? Same level of beds, same level of treatment offered?

Craig Whittaker MP ‏@CraigWhi2kermp

@HxCourierJon I don’t know! And neither do you, which is my point!! CCG haven’t consulted yet on which bits they will commission! We know

Jon Cronshaw ‏@HxCourierJon

@CraigWhi2kermp - well if you don’t know, why are you telling everyone it’s going to be fine?

Craig Whittaker MP ‏@CraigWhi2kermp

@HxCourierJon this just isn’t about A&E. You can’t cherry pick the bits. It’s a much bigger picture. you need to look at it as a whole

Josh Fenton-Glynn, Labour parliamentary candidate for Calder Valley, responded with disbelief at the allegations made in Mr Whittaker’s column and has accused Mr Whittaker of playing politics with an important issue.

He said: “Craig Whittaker refuses to see the evidence in front of his own eyes.

“In February he put a diagram of the proposed new structure on his website, in it one hospital lost its A&E.

“Either he is being deliberately misleading or he doesn’t understand.

“His position that there is no threat to our A&E is not credible.”