Daniel Zeichner MP has reacted with fury as Cambridgeshire health bosses threaten to shut down a vital service that stops thousands of pensioners from being admitted to hospital unnecessarily, pull the plug on Dial-a-Ride and slash funding for services provided by local charities including the Stroke Associationand The Carers Trust Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

In total the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) plan £33 million of savage health cuts.

The under-threat Joint Emergency Team (JET) supports people over the age of 65 when they become very unwell and need urgent care. Shockingly, the CCG’s own figures say that scrapping JET will mean that five more vulnerable older people will visit A&E every day.

Daniel Zeichner MP said: “This is a short-sighted decision that will come back to haunt the CCG. All efforts should be focussed on keeping people out of our hospitals. They should urgently think again.”

Mr Zeichner has had representations from staff who say they were only told about the plans a week ago and the MP is concerned that the public have also been left in the dark.

He says: “All of these decisions are of wider public interest and deserve proper scrutiny. I cannot help conclude that some of the judgements could certainly be open to challenge, and I do not believe they should be rushed. I believe that any final decision should be deferred to allow the public to make their views fully known.”

The MP, who spoke in a debate in Westminster about NHS funding last week, continued: “I appreciate the financial pressures on the NHS due to the underfunding by the Conservative Government. However, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough health bosses should be standing up to the Government, not sweeping massive cuts under the carpet and hoping no one notices.”