Sandy 4 St Albans

Yesterday’s suddenly announced decision by the PCT that they are not going to proceed with plans for the Urgent Care Centre on the St Albans City Hospital site is a stab in the front for local residents.

It was only a few days ago that I blogged about the closure of A&E at Hemel Hempstead and then blogged again about a young resident writing to me about how he just did not know what services were provided any longer at the St Albans site.

Yesterday’s communication is just another sad chapter in the long and sorry history of broken promises and betrayal over health service provision in our city and district by successive Conservative and Labour governments.

So much for all the consultation by the PCT on its Developing Quality Healthcare programme for Hertfordshire, the fancy slideshows and glossy brochures.  For the residents of St Albans, the fancy promises have turned out not to be worth the paper they were printed on.

Following our recent public meeting in the city with Norman Lamb MP to discuss local health service delivery and accountability, we are already delivering a survey to local households asking for people’s personal experiences  – from the new arrangements for A&E to out of hours services, transport and parking.

We decided to do this before we knew of this latest blow, and we are receiving a huge number of responses, which we will collate into a powerful dossier.  Many people have agreed with the sad comment of one elderly local resident quoted in the survey’s cover letter that “the NHS had left her”.

This latest blow provides yet more graphic evidence of the way that the historic city of St Albans is still being treated as an afterthought by health planners.  With less than six weeks to go to a General Election, the NHS must now be at the forefront of the local campaign.