Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Developer’s K&C offer
Accident and emergency services could finally return to Canterbury as part of a new “super” hospital now officially being considered by health officials.
The announcement by East Kent Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGS) has left campaigners jubilant as it would see the Kent and Canterbury Hospital ( K& C) facilities extended into a new state-ofthe-art building on neighbouring council-owned farmland.
Developer Mark Quinn has offered to build the £100 million hospital shell in exchange for planning permission from Canterbury council to build 2,000 homes to the south of the city, while land in private ownership has also been donated.
If built, the NHS would have to find the money to equip the new facility.
Ken Rogers, chairman of Concern for Health in East Kent, said: “This is what we have been battling for and it is fantastic news that we may have a new hospital in Canterbury. But it’s not just for the residents of Canterbury, it would be the whole of east Kent.”
The news was announced just three days after Chek campaigners visited health secretary Jeremy Hunt to express their concerns about the state of emergency healthcare in east Kent.
Services at the Kent & Canterbury have been rolled back since 2002 when the hospital lost its A&E department, which was split between Margate’s QEQM hospital and the William Harvey in Ashford.
Its status as an Urgent Care Centre has been undermined and there has been a haemorrhaging of emergency provision from the Canterbury site.
The most recent changes were made in June as almost half of K&C’S junior doctors were moved from the hospital by Health Education England and the General Medical Council following concerns that there were not enough consultants there to supervise them.
Mr Rogers said: “The oncebrilliant K&C no longer treats heart attack, stroke or respiratory patients and ambulances do not go there.”
A statement issued on Friday by east Kent CCGS, which plan and pay for local health services, said: “This potential option is a new- build connected to the current Kent and Canterbury Hospital, which would be a single major emergency centre for all of east Kent, with one 24/7 A&E and all specialist services at the same hospital – such as