Do you really want a skyscraper hospital taller than Grenfell Tower on a congested site next to Watford Football Club? Or would you prefer the better solution of a 21st century designed, centrally located, easy to get to, brand new general hospital, with scope for future expansion?
Help achieve the better solution, for ourselves, our children and their children, by donating now to our Crowdfunder.
Read on for more details and why we need to raise funds.
Timely and good hospital healthcare for the people, when needed, is an essential element of an advanced society. Sadly, in West Hertfordshire, the people have not been receiving very much of either and real transformation is required.
Our local NHS senior staff, like many of their decision making colleagues within our National Health Service, appear to have lost sight of the original focus of the NHS, of delivering good healthcare in a timely manner. Many major decisions made by them this century have not been based on what is in the best interest of the people.
These senior NHS staff, whilst growing their empires and rewarding themselves very generously, have systematically cut the UK’s hospital bed capacity, every single year, down to a dangerously inadequate level. From 2000 to 2020, whilst the UK’s population increased from 59m to 67m and the expenditure on the NHS doubled, the UK's NHS senior staff systematically cut the number of hospital beds every single year from 240,144 in 2000 down to 162,723 in 2020.
This does not personally impact the senior NHS staff who are the ones making the short sighted and poor decisions, but it does have a major adverse impact on the front line workforce and waiting patients. These decisions, like many other decisions that they have made this century, are totally counterproductive to being able to deliver good patient experience and outcomes in a timely manner.
The people can no longer simply continue to turn a blind eye to major healthcare decisions being made by the senior NHS staff which are not in the people's best interest.
The people need to get more involved. This very much applies to West Hertfordshire.
Our local hospital provider has been stuck in the lowest Care Quality Commission ratings of “inadequate” or “requires improvement” and needs complete real transformation.
West Herts 21 Century Hospital Solution was formed as a non-profit organisation, to get this real transformation, through achieving a purpose built, 21st century, acute general NHS Hospital (including A&E, maternity and planned surgery) for the people of West Hertfordshire, centrally located between the three main towns of St Albans, Watford and Hemel Hempstead.
After much lobbying, West Herts 21 Century Hospital Solution was able to help persuade the Government that West Hertfordshire needed real transformation in hospital care, through a completely new hospital. The Government has indicated up to £590 million could be provided for this.
This money could be used to build the new centrally located 21st century hospital, but instead, our local NHS senior staff want to keep Watford General as our main hospital. They want to spend £940 million to build a tower block hospital in Watford General’s small and sloping external car park. West Herts 21 Century Hospital Solution considers this to be a short sighted, poor decision, which is definitely not based on what is in the best interest of the people.
Our local NHS senior staffs' plan is to place West Hertfordshire’s unwell in a skyscraper hospital which will be higher than Grenfell Tower, where Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s tallest ladder could not possibly reach them. This cannot be in the patient's best interest. Hospitals require piped oxygen. Oxygen makes other materials ignite at a lower temperature and burn hotter and faster. Their planned skyscraper hospital is also far from centrally located for all the people of West Hertfordshire and immediately adjacent to Watford Football Club. Do our local NHS senior staff, not realise that it is unsafe to have women in labour, trying to get to the maternity department, when the roads are gridlocked by the traffic of over twenty thousand football supporters? By the way, Watford Football Club have also recently announced plans to expand their existing stadium’s capacity to thirty thousand.
In addition to the major football matches which can occur on almost any day of the week, other major events such as concerts also occur at Watford Football Club.
It is totally unfair on all the people of West Hertfordshire, for our local NHS senior staff to plan to locate our future hospital immediately next door to Watford Football Club.
Through kind donations from the public, money has been raised to help in the commissioning of the UK’s best and most experienced hospital architect, who designed the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, which opened in 2012 and is considered the most efficient and most liked by the public, to lead the design of the completely new hospital for the people of West Hertfordshire.
Design improvements, based on operational experience, technological advances, greater infection control, future proofing and importance of green spaces, were all incorporated into the new 21st century hospital for the people of West Hertfordshire.
The design of the 21st century hospital for the people of West Hertfordshire, has now been completed. It has been designed to fit on any 8 hectare site (including for planned future expansion). It would be a far better option for all the people of West Hertfordshire and for the front line hospital workforce, than the local NHS senior staffs' plan for the skyscraper next to the football stadium.
Images, taken from the design of the completely new, purpose built, 21st century hospital designed for and truly accessible by all the people of West Hertfordshire, are shown below.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), is currently looking into the short sighted and poor decision by our local NHS senior staff.
The next step for West Herts 21 Century Hospital Solution is to get an economic appraisal carried out by a credible organization to demonstrate that the completely new, centrally located, 21st century hospital is a far better option for the people of West Hertfordshire and for the hospital’s front line workforce.
West Herts 21 Century Hospital Solution is now crowdfunding to pay for the required economic appraisal which is needed to complete the package to be taken, together with the design, to the DHSC and to the Treasury.
Your kind donations to the crowdfunding would greatly help to achieve a far better healthcare future for ourselves, our children and their children.
This is a real opportunity for real transformation of hospital services for all the people of West Hertfordshire.