LESS than 24 hours after it was launched, the Daily Echo-backed campaign to save vital treatment received by heart patients across Hampshire is on its way to the House of Commons.
New Forest MPs Julian Lewis and Desmond Swayne are among those who are demanding answers after it was revealed that eight-week rehabilitation classes which help people recover from cardiac disease are being axed as part of a multi-million-pound cost-cutting drive by health bosses.
Scores of patients who have already completed the classes, which are held at leisure centres around Southampton and the Waterside, are demanding that the service is given a reprieve.
Since hearing the news less than a week ago, they have already begun setting up an action group in a bid to save the classes for others to benefit.
Last night, just hours after the campaign was launched, Desmond Swayne, Tory MP for New Forest West, told the Daily Echo he had requested a statement from the Secretary of State for Health about the move. The deadline for any response is October 14.
"I have asked if the Secretary of State for Health will make a statement about the proposed changes to cardiac rehabilitation services in south west Hampshire," said Mr Swayne, adding that the proposals had caused him to question how NHS money is being spent.
"I am not a clinician and I have no experience of these matters, so I am not in a position to say if they are important or not," he said.
"But the perception of the users is that they are very important and that they have made a big difference.
"I must take them at their word.
"If the things that are important to people's recovery after heart surgery are to be sacrificed as an economy measure then it begs enormous question as to what happens to all the money we are being told is being put into the NHS.
"Ministers are continually boasting at how much more we are spending and how much better the NHS is. But our experience in south west Hampshire is that the service is diminishing all the time."
Hospital bosses say the move will save no more than £20,000 - a fraction of the £15m cost-savings target set after Southampton's NHS trust ended the year more than £7m in the red.
But heart patients from across the city insist that axing the classes will cost much more in the long run, because without the proper aftercare, dozens of people could end up back in hospital.
This view was shared by Julian Lewis, Tory MP for New Forest East.
"This is a classic case of storing up trouble for the future by failing to take relatively simple measures in the present," he said.
"If these minimal financial savings are meant to cure the black hole in the hospital's finances, then further down the line the situation can only get worse as people are readmitted with more serious problems that this treatment is designed to prevent."
Mr Lewis added that he would be contacting the trust on behalf of his constituents, who he had advised to set up a petition.
"Being armed with a large number of signatures would strengthen any representation I make to the hospitals," he said.
Campaigner Anne Fry, who is organising the action group, said: "It is great to have the backing of our local MPs. It shows that they care about local people and issues that affect us all."
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