HOSPITAL ACCESS COULD BE KEY POLL BATTLEGROUND

Hospital issues – especially the difficulty of getting to Watford General Hospital – could become an important issue in the polls that are coming up, including the General Election.

That’s clear from the results of a major public consultation on plans for the future of South West Hertfordshire.

With the results in several marginal Herts parliamentary seats looking too close to call, candidates will need to listen to complaints about the location of the Vicarage Road hospital. Access to GPs will also be a big issue.

The consultation on the South West Herts Joint Strategic Plan covered thousands of respondents and showed that:

• One of the biggest issues for residents was access to healthcare
• The ‘principal concerns’ on infrastructure ‘related to Watford Hospital and the fact that this was hard to access.’
• People frequently mentioned Health and Transport under the ‘biggest single issue’ category.
• In the summary of responses – Hospital concerns about Watford featured highly.

A startling ‘Word Cloud’ showed which issues loomed largest for the people surveyed – and Hospital and Transport came up top.