Hospital a shadow of what it once was

When we first came to the Canterbury area in 1970 I remember the Kent and Canterbury Hospital was the place to be for excellent medical treatment and staff training.

With its post-graduate centre and ties to the London medical schools it had a ready supply of junior doctors and the stiff competition for any consultant posts ensured the best led teams.

It was the smaller peripheral hospitals in Margate and Ashford that had the recruiting problems and staff from Canterbury regularly spent some of their time in these hospitals to maintain the services there.

Fast forward 32 years and with the new William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and the expanded QEQM in Margate, the East Kent Hospital trust had the three major hospitals with the full services that East Kent needed, but with one major snag, they had insufficient funds to pay for them all.

So, as it would have been embarrassing to reduce services at Ashford and Margate where they had put in so much investment, they decided to make all the cuts in Canterbury.

Over the next 15 years more services were haemorrhaged from the K&C, so that now it is a shadow of its former self. It is hardly surprising therefore that it fails to attract staff and has to rely on agency doctors.

I also think that a look at the politics of east Kent might help to explain why this has happened. The new hospitals with their full services have certainly increased the parliamentary majorities of the MPS in these areas over the years, whereas Canterbury as a safe seat has attracted little government support.

We see a similar pattern with the roads, where although Canterbury desperately needs a southern bypass for the A28, all