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