With Helen Brown leaving West Herts Hospital Trust in June, it seems she and her colleagues are determined to make sure the trust’s plans are ‘set in stone’ before she departs, despite the promise from the trust of a “fresh eyes approach” to their previous decision to rule out a new site option.

Ms Brown talks about the trust’s board meeting at the end of May that it “represents a milestone on this topic” but failed to mention that the trust have promised in both their March and April Blueprint newsletters that a “fresh eyes approach” would look to see if the decision to exclude a new site option in October 2020 is still valid. It is very clear the trust are under pressure from the public and Government to justify the staggering £1.1 billion cost for building a three-tower, high-rise hospital on the current Vicarage Road car parks.

The problem with the supposed “fresh eyes approach” is the same old faces will presumably undertake this review and this will be presented to the trust’s board on May 31. The incoming CEO, deputy CEO and any replacement for the acute redevelopment director’s role will only arrive after the board have made their decision on whether a new site option should now be included in the trust’s Outline Business Case. The “milestone” board meeting has been timed nicely to allow those leaving the trust to leave a legacy that would deny the west Herts population a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a centrally located A&E hospital in an environment fit to be called a hospital health campus.

Ms Brown also mentioned in her letter that the trust held a stakeholders’ session titled ‘Hospital Design Principles’, which can now be viewed as a video on YouTube. The spokespersons for the trust’s architects, BDP, did their best to put a positive spin on their high-rise design but it was very clear the topography of the Vicarage Road site has been a major challenge for them. The architects talked about modern methods of construction in the video and explained how much of the construction work would be undertaken off-site and gave two examples of hospitals using these methods - the much cheaper £350 million Grange University hospital in Wales and the still to be completed redevelopment of the Royal Sussex hospital in Brighton. The Grange hospital is a good example of the benefits of building a new hospital on a new clear site and the Brighton hospital is a ten-year redevelopment being undertaken in three stages.

The trust were asked in this session what would happen if they didn’t get funding for their high-rise hospital proposal. The spokesperson for the trust said they were working on other options in case this happened but no details were given as to what plan B might consist of! The trust’s board must be very aware of the threat to the trust’s redevelopment plans having to be scaled down or even sent back to the drawing board because of lack of funding, whatever Ms Brown might argue. To put the trust’s funding request into perspective, the total estimated costs for their three hospitals’ redevelopment plans is £1.25 billion and the Government’s pledge for building 40 new hospitals in 2020 was only £3.7 billion!

Regarding Ms Brown’s declaration the trust’s redevelopment plans are the fastest route for delivering new buildings and facilities, this is only true because the trust have refused to include a new site option in their shortlisted options. The trust have banked everything on keeping west Herts’ A&E services on the Vicarage Road site despite the west Herts community not buying into their plans. The trust are determined to have the most expensive hospital ever built in the UK, which is outrageous given they have previously ruled out a new site on the basis that it wasn’t affordable! As a comparison of hospital costs, the new Harlow hospital on a new green site is estimated to cost around £800 million, which looks an absolute steal compared to our trust’s plans.

The trust have also been making a lot about the opening of their new multi-storey car park but fail to mention this is not about additional parking spaces but a replacement for the leased staff car park and the need to use the remaining public car parks for their new high-rise hospital.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again, that many of those making the decisions for the trust will have moved on before the consequences of their decisions are fully realised.

It is vitally important the board meeting at the end of May is postponed until the new CEO and deputy CEO are onboard. Those making such important decisions for us all need to be held accountable for redevelopment plans that will need to serve the entire west Herts’ population for the next 60 years plus!

Andrew Love

By email