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
County Council elections - a chance to make your voice heard on Hemel and Watford hospitals
- The Herts County Council elections on 1 May are a chance to make your voice heard on Hemel and Watford Hospitals
- Why? Because the NHS is run in a way that is completely undemocratic
- The key decisions on our health services are made in secret by unelected bureaucrats and people appointed by the Government. These have often been bad decisions in West Herts
- The only impact voters can have on what happens to our hospitals is via the County Council, which has a Health Scrutiny Committee
- These Committees have strong powers. The Government says they 'play a vital role as the body responsible for scrutinising health services for their local area. They retain legal duties to review and scrutinise matters relating to the planning, provision and operation of the health service in the area.'
- But the Herts Committee has failed to use these powers effectively. It has made no impact on the NHS trusts and their unpopular plans for a rebuild of Watford General - and the vague proposal for a 'Hub' in Hemel to replace Hemel Hospital
- We need elected people to hold the Trust bureaucrats and placemen to account for their decisions
- If and when candidates and canvassers call round and ask for your vote, please ask them:
- Will you urge the County Council Health Scrutiny Committee to demand a hospital in Hemel Hempstead that will provide enough high-quality hospital services to meet the needs of Dacorum's ageing and growing population for at least 30 years?
– Will you urge the Health Scrutiny Committee to demand that the NHS explore accessible new sites as alternatives to the delayed rebuild of Watford General?
The West Herts Trust doesn't want you to see these reports
- The decision to reject all possible clear new accessible sites for a new emergency and specialist West Hertfordshire Hospital was based on a single technical assessment by NHS civil servants published in 2020
- This 'site feasibility study' (SFS) said that it would be quicker and less risky to build a new hospital facility at Watford General than at any clear new site in a place that West Herts people could reach more easily (page 3)
- This SFS has been suppressed by the Trust - it has been removed from the Trust website and the Trust has done its best to make it impossible for the public to trace it on the internet
- But the New Hospital Campaign have kept a copy - attached!
- Also attached is a report by an independent expert commissioned by the New Hospital Campaign which says it would be quicker to build on a clear new accessible site than to build at Watford General
- That report, by Mike Naxton, says: 'The Watford site would seem to take a much longer period to deliver a fully functional facility under the proposed redevelopment plans than would be the case with the Greenfield New Build option.' He continues that there is a 'high risk of time and cost overruns as a result of
encountering unforeseen problematic conditions on an existing aged operational hospital estate
such as Watford.' (page 26) - Please feel free to make your own choice!
- This is the report with the assessment by NHS civil servants:
- WHHT Site Feasibility Report - 210820 - final
- This is the independent report:
- Full-Naxton-Report-with-Appendices
Is it built of Lego or not? Trust muddle over 'actual design' of new hospital
- West Herts Trust's new website sows confusion over the design for the proposed Watford General rebuild
- Its redevelopment page proudly proclaims that a video shows 'the actual design' of the costly new hospital, suggesting the main design work has been done and dusted
- No such luck. There are big differences between the two images of the design of the entrance block which appear next to each other on the same website page.
- One image (the top one below) shows a rounded building with a consistent height, smoothly linking into the 200 foot-plus towers where most patients will be
- The other image (the bottom one below from a slightly different angle) shows a squared-off building with varying heights, awkwardly butting up against the closely-packed tower blocks. Legoland Watford.
Trust hides information on waiting times in transparency breach
- Vital information about the performance of Watford, St Albans and Hemel Hospitals has been hidden from the public
- In defiance of transparency guidelines laid down by the information watchdog, the ICO, the West Herts NHS Trust recently removed previous years' Board minutes from its website. The oldest available minutes are from February 2024.
- These national transparency rules state that trusts must publish minutes going back at least three years. This allows the public to compare performance as reported to the Board, including A&E and surgery waits.
- In a further move which shows its determination to prevent public access to this important information, the Trust has, it seems, also ensured that it is impossible to find the previous years' minutes through internet search. Just try Googling 'board minutes West Herts 2022'.
Watford General patients could face years of disruption from two huge building schemes
Councils consider plan which could mean many years of disruption for Watford General patients, as two major building projects happen at the same time.
- Joint scrutiny committee is looking at proposals to bring relocated new Mount Vernon Cancer Centre together with Watford General rebuild.
- Cancer Centre needs to be near a general hospital for safer and better patient care
- Plans could mean £1.4bn 260-foot towering infirmary being built at same time as £465m cancer centre to replace Mount Vernon centre - on virtually same site
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Current main building could be facing noise and pollution nuisance from two sides for many years.
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Plans being considered by joint local authority committee would also mean Watford site being run by two separate Trusts - with risk of management chaos
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Houses, flats and hotels also likely to be built at same time within a few metres of new buildings
- NHS unlikely to consider the best option - a clear new site for both new buildings away from cramped Vicarage Road which would provide better access and environment - and better value for money
The papers for the joint committee are below - see Agenda Pack page 20.
Public reports pack 16122024 1000 Joint Health Overview Scrutiny Committee
Building experts warn of soaring costs and delays for Watford General rebuild
Two building experts warn today that severe shortage of skilled workers could cause even more delays and higher costs for the planned £1.4bn rebuild of Watford General Hospital - which is already years behind schedule.
- Construction companies last week raised alarm that there are too few workers to meet the needs of the Government's massive national house building push and other projects
- Lack of capacity in the workforce will increase costs and make contractors shy away from high risk projects - like the complicated Watford General Hospital rebuild
- The sloping site and closeness to main clinical buildings make the Watford project complex and costly
- Treasury, who have to pay the bills for new hospitals, will be 'unnerved' by rising costs in an over-heated market - with Watford General a bad case of costs running out-of-control
- Clear new site for West Herts' emergency care and specialist hospital could offer lower cost and risk
The experts, Bob Scott and Trevor Williams, are both supporters of the New Hospital Campaign. Their statements are here:
Release on industry shortages Dec 2024
NHS AND COUNCIL MUST RETHINK PLAN TO CLOSE HEMEL HOSPITAL
Health group says NHS and Dacorum Council must rethink plans to Hemel Hempstead Hospital
- 11,000 more homes are planned in the new Hemel Hempstead Garden Communities - but the NHS plans to close Hemel Hempstead Hospital
- Dacorum Health Action Group (DHAG) says more and better health services are needed for the Borough to meet the future health demands of an ageing population, with nearly 40% more over-65s in the next 20 years
- Instead, the NHS and Council are proposing an inadequate replacement - a Health Campus or Hub in Hemel's Market Square. This single building on a cramped site would be too small to accommodate the expanded services vitally needed for the Borough's ageing and growing population
- Parking would be a nightmare at the proposed Hub. The current Hospital has over 400 car spaces - which would disappear under the plans. Where would patients and their families park at the Hub?
- DHAG says in comments on the draft Dacorum Local Plans the proposals would mean Dacorum Council failing in its legal duty to plan the infrastructure to support the 'required facilities' for future hospital care in the Borough as the population ages and grows
DHAG's response to the draft Dacorum Local Plan is here: