Whittington Hospital

Open letter to Board of Whittington Health.

Dear Steve Hitchins,

• IT is a year since the dreadful tragedy that was the Grenfell Tower fire, when 72 people lost their lives.

It is a year since the executive group at the Whittington decided to procure a subsidiary of the renovators of Grenfell Tower as the strategic estates partner, on a 10-year contract. This decision was ratified by the Whitt­ington board in a secret meeting in October 2017.

Again we request that you do not sign the contract with Rydon subsidiary Ryhurst. We believe it is ethically unsound for a hospital to pay NHS funds to a company that was so closely associated with such an enormous tragedy.

We think there are serious risk implications in its appointment, in terms of health and safety of staff and patients, given it is at the heart of a judicial inquiry.

We believe it is essential that Whitting­ton Health terminates all dealings with Rydon, manages the estate strategy in-house and is transparent in the details of any future building contracts, to demonstrate probity, soundness in good building practice, and goodwill to the community it serves.

DEFEND THE WHITTINGTON HOSPITAL COALITION