West Herts Trust refuse to say how much they've wasted on Watford General project
West Herts Trust have refused to make public how much has been wasted on developing the Watford General rebuild scheme - now stalled for 7 to 9 years
Health Service Journal has published estimates for money wasted on other schemes in the 40 New Hospitals programme
But West Herts have apparently blocked HSJ's freedom of info request on how much Wasteful Watford has cost up to now
- Here is the article from Health Service Journal
- HSJ wasted on NHP
Survey suggests little current public support for Hemel Health Campus
- An opinion survey suggests there is little public support for a Hemel Health Campus - at least at the moment
- Of the 1025 people who took part in a survey of public opinion from 8 to 31 March, an overwhelming majority (91%) would like to see development of the current Hemel Hempstead Hospital site for a community hospital.
- Just 9% of respondents said they preferred the Hemel Health Campus proposed for the Market Square in Hemel
- The survey, via the Survey Monkey portal, does not provide a scientific cross-section of the population, and respondents are self-selected, but the result gives some indication of public opinion
- Although there have been many general statements from the NHS and Dacorum Borough Council about what the Health Campus might offer, they have lacked detail. There has been no commitment from the NHS to provide any specific service in Dacorum in the future
- The result of this survey is concerning. The NHS and Dacorum Borough Council strongly favour the Campus idea, but have not provided the information that residents need to make an informed decision about the hospital services they require, and where they should be sited
- The NHS should urgently draw up firm proposals for the future of hospital care in Dacorum - and the public must be consulted about them without further delay.
- The survey results are here: Summary of March 2025 survey
Clear new site for a new West Herts hospital could save NHS up to £500m
- New expert report says the NHS could save up to half a billion pounds with a new A&E and specialist hospital on a clear new site instead of rebuilding Watford General
- Hospital on suitable clear site could also be built up to a year earlier than struggling on with Wasteful Watford redevelopment
- Highly experienced building expert Robert Scott says West Herts Trust plan for building at Watford's cramped and sloping Vicarage Road site would be costly and disruptive, with several risks to patient care
- Over many years, Trust has failed to come up with a Watford scheme that is both affordable and practical.
- 7+ year delay to Watford plan is a chance to explore cheaper, quicker - and better - options
- Watford's woes would include - noisy and polluting interference with working of the existing hospital, need for expensive groundworks, complex safety measures, reduced working hours, inadequate access for construction traffic which would hamper hospital traffic
- Mr Scott, who is a member of the New Hospital Campaign, calculates that building on a clear site could cost around £1.45bn - against a likely cost of around £1.936bn for the rebuild of Watford General
- That's a Watford Money Gap of about £500m
- Report calls for 'A full professional independent review and alternative site search' for alternative options for a new West Herts hospital and 'a reliable re-evaluation of the current proposals'
The full media release on the Scott report is here: Media release costs comparison
The Scott report is here: FinalHospital Site Viability Study 5_3_25
Enough parking at a Hemel Health Campus?
- Many doubt there would be enough parking spaces for the proposed Hemel Health Campus in Market Square, but could the sceptics be wrong?
- There are 400+ parking spaces at the current Hemel Hospital, and they're fairly well-used - not too many spare spaces
- So could a replacement Health Campus on Market Square have enough spaces for everyone?
- Maybe they could fit - but how could it be done?
- I understand from a Council source you COULD put another deck on the Water Gardens car park
- And the cramped Hillfield Road NCP car park across from the Market Square often has spaces
- BUT it would cost serious money to provide extra spaces. NCP would play hardball over reduced prices - and adding a whole extra deck to Water Gardens would be pricey and disruptive
- And money is in very short supply - just ask Rachel Reeves
Hemel Health Campus - key documents
- With the future of hospital services in Dacorum under discussion and a survey of public opinion being conducted now, here are two key documents about the proposed Hemel Health Campus in Market Square - a project initiation document and a feasibility study
Hemel Health Campus PID v1.5a Committee Submitted
Hemel Health Campus Feasibility v0.14
Watford General - England's worst acute hospital for privacy and dignity
- Watford General is rated England's worst acute hospital for privacy, dignity and wellbeing, according to a closely-watched NHS national survey carried out in 2024
- Watford also came bottom on this measure in the previous year's PLACE survey - and the situation has got worse
- Watford gets just 65% for privacy, dignity and wellbeing in 2024 as other local hospitals do much better - Lister in Stevenage gets 90% rating, Luton and Dunstable 78%
- PLACE assessments are an annual appraisal of the non-clinical aspects of NHS and independent/private healthcare settings, undertaken by teams made up of staff and members of the public (known as patient assessors). The team must include a minimum of 2 patient assessors, making up at least 50 per cent of the group.
- Food on the wards at Watford General got a score of 80%, with St Albans City Hospital getting just 76%. Luton and Dunstable ward food rated about the same as Watford, with 81%, with Lister again achieving a high score of 93%.
- The link to the NHS report on the PLACE survey is here.
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/patient-led-assessments-of-the-care-environment-place/england---2024#
Watford General gets low scores from inpatients - Emergency and urgent care are average
- Watford General Hospital is rated below others in England for inpatient feedback, with a 7.7 out of 10 overall score. Inpatient areas where it got below average scores in an NHS 2023 patient survey were -- Doctors, Care and treatment, Nurses and Leaving hospital, which received a rating of just 6.5 out of 10
- The Hospital rated above average on one measure - 'Operations and procedures' for inpatients.
- Scores for the Watford Emergency Department were about average, although tests were not up to the English average.
- Urgent Treatment Centres at Hemel and Watford were given 7.8 out of 10, which is 'similar to other providers across the country' according to the West Herts Trust which runs both hospitals. However, waiting times for the UTCs got a very low score of just 4.4 out of 10
- The full scores are on page 8 of the Patient_experience_strategy_Nov24V1D8 document just published.
Six month delay for Hemel Health Campus plan
- Dacorum Council update on the proposed Market Square Hemel Health Campus or Hub reveals that a key document, due to be ready by May 2025, won't be submitted until the end of the year
- The Strategic Outline Case is vital to progress but is held up in NHS bureaucracy
- There are no details yet of services to be provided in the Hub after the planned closure of Hemel Hospital
- Dacorum Health Action Group Chair Philip Aylett says: 'The NHS needs to put up or shut up about the closure of Hemel Hospital and the plan to replace it with a Campus or Hub. After 15 months of speculation, we are none the wiser about the future of hospital services in Dacorum.
- 'Recent revelations about the recent severe rundown of major services at Hemel Hospital make it vital that the NHS sets out its plans for the future urgently. At the present rate of service cuts for our local hospital, there will be nothing left to transfer to the Hub if and when it is finished.'
- This is the Health Campus team Dacorum release
Hemel Hospital downgrade gathers pace as more services are cut
- Cardiology, stroke care, clinical oncology, haematology and urology services have all been removed from Hemel Hempstead Hospital in just over three years as the NHS continues to run the site down
- There are just 17 services now offered at Hemel Hempstead. As recently as September 2021 there were 23 available locally
- This is just the latest instalment in the long-term NHS asset-stripping that has seen resources switched from Dacorum to favoured but crowded sites in Watford and St Albans
- Hemel's A&E was shuttered about 15 years ago - and the Gossoms End community hospital in Berkhamsted closed a few years later
- More recently the West Herts Trust moved the valued fracture clinic from Hemel under the cover of Covid
- The further downgrading of Hemel Hospital raises questions about the plans for a Health Hub or Campus in the Market Square - which would house facilities moved there from the current site
- Will anything be left of Hemel's hospital services if and when the Hub opens?
- A paper setting out the narrowing of the range of services locally available is here:Services-at-Hemel-Hempstead-Hospital
Exploring new hospital sites - the NHS sets out the to-do list
West Herts NHS Trust explained how, in 18 months or less, a new site could become the 'preferred option' for the area's emergency care hospital.
The work towards a new preferred option, set out in a paper for the Trust Board in May 2022, would include:
- an updated site search to identify suitable potential sites
- an appraisal of these sites to identify any viable options / a shortlist of
potential sites - more detailed appraisal of the shortlist to identify one or more preferred
options - initial review of site infrastructure requirements
- preliminary commercial negotiations
- exploratory discussions with relevant planning authorities
- detailed feasibility studies and 1:500 designs for the identified site/s to produce robust and comparable capital costs for the shortlist appraisal
- The paper says 'Once all the above had been completed the detailed option appraisal could be updated and a new preferred option recommendation ascertained. It is anticipated that it would take c.12 to 18 months to complete the above work and cost in excess of £2m.'
- There would then be more detailed work on the new preferred option, including getting planning permission. That could take between 9 and 18 months.
- Even if this preliminary work on a new option took the maximum time calculated by the Trust, the project would be well on the way by 2028.
- The Watford General project does not have full planning permission and no final design has been determined
The papers are here - see Tab 5.2 - shortlist review May_2022_board_papers2