Meeting to share options for developing hospital provision
Posted: 20 February 2019
Senior clinicians and leaders from West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and
Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) will present a shortlist of
options for future hospital provision and will ask people to discuss these and
give their views.
All of the options being considered will have costs that fall within the
threshold set by regulators - that any plans must be in line with the hospital
trust’s annual turnover of approximately £350million.
This financial restriction rules out a new, single site emergency and planned
care hospital. Options which involve moving emergency and critical care from
Watford are also out of the question because they require relocating many other
interdependent services, and this cannot be achieved within the funding
threshold.
The options evaluation will consider the level of investment needed in emergency
and specialist care at Watford General Hospital and in planned care (either at
existing sites or a new planned care centre on a new site) and the implications
of different options for particular services and locations.
Feedback from next month’s meeting will be considered by the project team and
also our evaluation panel that meets in mid- March. This panel is made up of
clinical staff, NHS managers, community representatives, Healthwatch, local
authority partners and the voluntary sector.
After the evaluation panel has met, options will then have further financial and
technical analysis before a recommendation on the preferred way forward goes to
the boards of both NHS organisations during early summer. The boards’ agreed
proposal will then be considered by the government as part of the Comprehensive
Spending Review in autumn 2019.
As spaces are limited anyone who wants to attend the event must book a place
through Eventbrite
https://west-herts-hospital-meeting.eventbrite.co.uk. If you do not have
access to the internet you can book a place by calling 01442 898885 or 01442
284116. The venue is fully accessible and there will be a hearing loop available
for anyone that needs one.
Ends
Notes to editors
- For more information please contact communications team at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust on 01923 436281 or email. For out of hours media enquiries please call the Watford General Hospital switchboard on 01923 244366 and ask for the on call communications manager.
- West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust serves people from across Hertfordshire, north London and further afield. It operates from three hospitals; Watford General, St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead. The trust has a catchment area of over 500,000 people and is one of the largest employers locally, with around 5,000 staff and volunteers.
- For more information about our hospitals, visit www.westhertshospitals.nhs.uk. You can also join our followers on Twitter (twitter.com/westhertsNHS) and find us on Facebook (facebook.com/westhertsNHS).
