This is the text from a letter written to the Enfield Advertiser by Andrew Lansley, Conservative Shadow Secretary of State for Health and next Secretary for State under a Conservative government. It sets out the policy for Chase Farm hospital under a Conservative government.

April 14th 2010

Dear Editor,

 I felt compelled to write to the Enfield Advertiser after learning that Joan Ryan is spreading false and unsubstantiated claims about our plans for Chase Farm Hospital.

 Only three weeks ago, Joan Ryan was rightly chastised by the Chief Executive of NHS Enfield for deliberately misleading residents into believing that under Labour, Chase Farm Hospital would retain an accident and emergency department after 2013. Now she has gone one step further and claimed that a Conservative government would not guarantee to keep Chase Farm open. There are no grounds for this claim. It is yet another Labour party untruth, one of many taking place across the country.

 Under a Labour government Chase Farm will lose its Accident and Emergency Unit after 2013, with no more blue light emergencies going to the hospital. Instead, there will be an Urgent Care Centre- not at all the same thing. With A&E in great demand, and a rising population, it is not acceptable that Enfield's district hospital should be losing its A&E. To be clear, the Conservatives if elected will end the current NHS London top-down process.

 With the Conservatives, NHS services will be commissioned by GPs. So GPs, in consultation with the people of Enfield, will be able to determine the services they wish to maintain at Chase Farm. If GPs and the people of Enfield want to maintain emergency and maternity services, there will be no forced closure under the Conservatives.

 The Conservatives are the only party that has pledged to increase heath spending in real terms, year on year, for five years. Regardless of what Ms Ryan puts in her literature about our plans, we do not believe that the sick should be made to pay for Labour's debt crisis..

Your Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Enfield North, Nick de Bois, has done a fantastic job in bringing home to me and the Conservative health team just how important Chase Farm is to the people of Enfield. I wish to leave residents in no doubt about our plans, and dispel the frankly appalling myths being touted by the Labour Party. The simple truth is, it's Gordon Brown's Labour government, supported by Joan Ryan, that is set to downgrade Chase Farm Hospital.

Yours Sincerely

Andrew Lansley

Shadow Health Secretary

London SW1