***SOS*** The case for Hatfield in 2007 vs 2003

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Oct 2007

Nigel Quinton: campaigning for a hospital in Hatfield.

This news item is one of a series of SOS hospital campaign items highlighting the importance of local services. The suggestions outlined below have been submitted to Mr Gareth Jones, in the wake of a survey that shows that 91 % of local respondents believe that the Hatfield Hospital remains the answer to the area's health needs.

In the 2003 IIYH consultation the NHS and the public chose a new hospital and a new cancer centre. Despite the changes in care known and highlighted in IIYH a new hospital is not now to be built because it is 'unaffordable'. Having effectively dismissed the choice previously made we are now being asked to choose which of two ageing, not designed for the 21st century hospitals is to have its life prolonged on the apparent underlying assumption that the PCT/Hospital Trust is never going to be able to 'afford' a new hospital. This despite the fact that with a national tariff for most care procedures new hospitals have been built in other parts of the country which were considered affordable by their PCT/Hospital Trusts.

Staff are the largest cost of a hospital and will be much the same whether in old and inadequate buildings or new buildings and it is disappointing that ways to provide an 'affordable' new hospital building have not, and apparently are not, being pursued. A new hospital building could provide significantly better patient care and this opportunity is being left to languish.