Is £450m health plan really fit for the future?

IN YOUR article (“Health bosses want your views on £450m Building Better Hospitals for the Future plans” (Mercury, September 28), Caroline Trevithick, the deputy chief executive for the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland clinical commissioning groups, insisted that the public consultation isn’t simply a “rubber stamping exercise” and implied that there has been appreciable communication with patients and the public about the plans during the pre-consultation stage.

If health bosses regard members of the public as valued contributors to the decision-making process then why was a Freedom of Information Act request to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust for the pre-consultation business case (and supporting documentation) regarding the reconfiguration proposal turned down?

I attended two public information meetings about the plans, but the managers and clinicians present didn’t appear particularly receptive to the public’s input and their view seemed to be “this way or the highway”.

The reconfiguration does look pretty, and for the £450 million it’s costing the taxpayer it should be, but does the relatively small increase in bed numbers take account of the planned increase in population for the county?

Have traffic congestion and parking been carefully considered? Are the county’s women of child-bearing intent confident that beating their way to the Leicester Royal Infirmary site when they are in labour is the best option for them?

People are genuinely concerned that such questions haven’t been adequately answered and that the proposals lack foresight.

Andrew Furlong, medical director at the trust, and other health bosses may like to put a spin on it and say the health service in Leicestershire would have coped better with the coronavirus crisis if the reconfiguration plans had already been in place (“£ 450m Building Better Hospitals for the Future proposals would have made it ‘easier’ to cope with coronavirus”, Mercury, September 28) but I suspect the recognised failings of the health service to deal with the crisis are more likely due to health bosses not heeding the warnings about the risk of a pandemic and not making the necessary preparations that were recommended in the Cygnus report following the 2016 pandemic simulation exercise named Exercise Cygnus.

Where will we be in 10 or 15 years’ time if the health bosses involved with these plans don’t heed the warnings about population growth in Leicestershire and continue to commit to a short-term healthcare solution that may not meet the county’s longer-term needs?

If another pandemic hits in the future, then what will happen if Leicester’s hospitals are found to be short of beds again?

Elizabeth Wenn, Market Harborough