Reminder on Doolan Debate

Just a reminder that the Ed Doolan show is going to host a debate on Shaping Hospital Services for the Future at City Hospital this Friday (23^rd February 2007) at 10am. It will be in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre of the Postgraduate Centre at City. Tickets can be obtained by phoning 08453 030 030. I believe you may be required to have a question to ask the panel.

Normally I would include a link to the City Hospital site map here but as you can see it does not work. The Trust paid a private firm £6000 develop this website to help advertise their services and compete for patients in the new patient-centred NHS, but they cannot even be bothered to check what they paid for works. We can only imagine what will happen when we give them £700 million for the new hospital and community facilities.

The Towards 2010 consultation that concentrates on the proposals to build a new hospital finished on Friday, but the consultation regarding the interim reconfiguration plans outlined in Shaping Hospital Services for the Future has been extended for another month until March 15th 2007. While it is great to be able to concentrate on the reconfiguration plans in this debate (which is after all the way the consultations should have been done, i.e. separately), it is very convenient for the Trust to not have to face the public again over the plans to build a new hospital in Smethwick. Despite what the Trust says, these plans are very unpopular in Sandwell and the only reason the opposition to Towards 2010 has not been taken seriously is that there is not an organised campaign highlighting these plans in the way the City Hospital Supporters Group has done for the other consultation. As I have mentioned on this blog before, the Trust has not even waited for the end of the consultation before putting the wheels in motion for the building of the new hospital.

On Friday, we have an opportunity to prevent the same thing happening with the interim reconfiguration plans.