No answers from PCT

12.00.00am GMT Thu 14th Dec 2006

Libdem health spokesman Cllr Nigel Quinton

At a public meeting at Campus West on Thursday the East & North Herts PCT came to answer our questions regarding the Hatfield Hospital "decision". They sent a top team - Chief Exec, Chair and Finance Director. But could they answer our questions? - NO!

They had no answer to Libdem Councillor Nigel Quinton when he asked why this strategic decision lacked any discernible element of strategic thinking.

They had no answer to a resident who asked why they couldn't fight for more money, rather than just meekly accept what government set as their budget.

They had no answer to the questioner who asked if the extra 125,000 people expected to be housed in the county by 2021 had been taken into account, assuming the inspectors report is backed by the government.

They had no answer to specific questions on cost estimates - not even the finance director! They could not even answer the question "what would Hatfield cost without the cancer centre?" - and this is the only relevant comparison to the cost of revamping either the QE2 or the Lister. If they don't even know that, then just what have they been doing during their "review"?

Cllr Nigel Quinton, the Libdem member of the councils group of Health Champions, offered a bleak assessment: "I am no more confident in the conclusions reached by the PCT now than I was before the meeting - in fact the reverse. The PCT has been created by this meddling and incompetent Labour government and they are like rabbits caught in the headlights. They are in an impossible position with a deficit that they have no visible means to support, or recover, and their staff have been disreorganised to the nth degree. It is not surprising that they lack the confidence to tell the Department of Health that Investing in Your Health (IiYH) should be implemented as promised.

"Instead it is back to the drawing board, with further work required in any number of areas before they will know what to do - most of which, if not all, is just a repeat of IiYH. What we need is for our local health service to be proud of IiYH, and to hold it out as a beacon to other areas, and to see it implemented."

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