Plans for Kidderminster Hospital 'Walk-In Walk-Out' Centre are a National Scandal

The long awaited plans for the provision of the promised ambulatory care unit for Kidderminster Hospital were unveiled at a meeting of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust Board meeting on 17 January 2001.

This unit was the carrot in the plan for hospital services published in February 1998 by the Worcestershire Health Authority imposed on Wyre Forest people and beyond to persuade them to accept the loss of their CHARTER MARK WINNING, ACUTE GENERAL HOSPITAL. Why the delay in disclosing these plans?

Trust Board members, including Mr David Lock's election agent, Mr Chris Nicholls nodded through the outline business case at the meeting.

There were no questions asked about safety. This will be the only such unit in the UK miles from an acute general hospital. It is therefore an experiment in care and safety - OUR SAFETY.

The cost of gutting the five-year old, £14 million E block to provide this untried, unnecessary and locally unwanted facility is a staggering £9 million of taxpayers' money. Even this sum does not include the cost of providing temporary operating theatres, outpatient departments and facilities for the Wyre Forest Birth Centre. All of these will have to be moved out of E block during two years of disruption for rebuilding. How many more millions will all this cost? Nobody asked!

Dr Richard Taylor, Chairman of Health Concern said,

"The air of complacency and self-congratulation at the Trust Board meeting was unbelievable. To spend this amount of money on a five-year old hospital block for an untried experiment is an absolute scandal. One can only assume that the government is determined to throw money at Kidderminster in an attempt to bribe the electorate. Why oh why could they not give us back something we want? Even some beds for short admissions to hospital would allow an increased range of surgery to be carried out in Kidderminster and would ease the strain elsewhere in the county. The provision of an A&E facility as recommended in the King's Fund Report and made acceptable to local doctors is the only way to satisfy local peoples' anxieties.