Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
New hospital for city makes sense
Congratulations on your exclusive report on the proposed new hospital to be based in Canterbury [‘Super hospital’, Gazette, February 18].
This exciting venture will transform healthcare for all of us living in east Kent.
As the distinguished surgeon Mr Bob Heddle says: “A hospital in the middle of east Kent just makes sense”. It will indeed provide better access for all of us folk living in the area. And research shows that access to specialised healthcare is key to survival in emergencies!
The success of the project will depend on the appropriate integration of healthcare in all three hospitals, and within general practitioner-led primary care services. It would be wrong to downgrade Margate and Ashford Hospitals as they will be an essential part of the combined and enhanced services.
Jim Appleyard MD FRCP, Retired Consultant Children’s Physician Blean Common, Canterbury
■ Those of us who have been campaigning for a new hospital in Canterbury were delighted to see the two-page spread on the issue in last week’s Gazette. Understandably the NHS has been concentrating on the pandemic over the past year, and our heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone working within it. But with a glimmer of light at the end of the Covid-tunnel it is vital that we turn up the pressure on the decision-makers in the NHS and Government to make the longoverdue decision on a top-class new specialist hospital for the whole of east Kent.
Those of us who campaigned 15 years ago to stop the Kent and Canterbury being made into a small cottage hospital were successful in that. However, the then-secretary of State for Health kicked the can down the road. The argument for a single major specialist hospital in east Kent was incontrovertible, and Canterbury was identified as the best place for it - but they did not find the money, and left east Kent with three specialist hospitals, struggling to recruit the best clinicians, struggling to cope with the budgets they are given. After 15 years of a failed model of hospital care, it is high time, for us users of the NHS but also for the hard-working people who have kept it going during this crisis, that we have this single major hospital that is needed. There are two options for a new hospital: Ashford (option1) and Canterbury (option 2). Some of us long-term campaigners have set up a group to alert local people that the NHS will at some time consult the public on the options. Those of us who want that hospital next to the old Kent and Canterbury buildings must make sure we respond, and we have got to have our arguments ready. That is why some of us long-term campaigners have set up a group, ‘Option2 4U’, to explain why we think Canterbury is the best option, and to seek out and disseminate any information we can gather on the state of healthcare in east Kent, and on progress towards a decision on the hospital
Our website is option2group. org.uk.
A public consultation may well take place this year.
Martin Vye, chair of Option2 4U Patrixbourne Road, Bridge
■ I wholeheartedly agree with Rosie Duffield’s point regarding the proposed new hospital being funded by our central government.
Allowing developers to ‘assist’ with it, on the understanding that they will be granted permission to build swathes of houses in the area, will leave us exposed to similar unsavoury persuasive tactics forever.
Tom Lynch
New Dover Road, Canterbury
■ Of course I support Option
2 for a new district hospital in Canterbury. I was a proud early member of CHEK (Concern for Health in East Kent) and I’ve still got the ‘Save the K&C’ T-shirt! However, nothing comes for free. Rosie Duffield says it should be funded by the government, not Quinn Estates. True. But that isn’t going to happen. Remember, it was Frank Dobson, a Labour Minister, who tried to downgrade the K&C.
Mark Quinn will not do this out of the kindness of his heart. He is a developer and quite properly out to make a profit. The price is 2,000 more houses. We have seen long-running battles opposing the 4,000 houses at Mountfield Park and 1,150 houses at Thanington. Add in 1,000 on Littlebourne Road, probably 800 on the Wincheap Estate, 350 at Ridlands Farm, 50 on Hollow Lane and 3,000-odd student halls of residence, and the population of Southern Canterbury will more than double.
This raises a number of issues. How will the hospital be accessed? The Mountfield Park fast bus route will compromise hospital access. A bigger hospital will inevitably have more traffic and more emergency ambulances too.
Is it in the right place? The Mountfield Park development reserved a new hospital site by the new A2 junction. Should it go there?
Is it acceptable to build more houses on largely grade 1 agricultural land from the present hospital site to the far side of Thanington?
How will the traffic be handled from a doubled South Canterbury population? The New and Old Dover Roads, Wincheap and Littlebourne Road all end up on the ring road. It is already over capacity and there are no effective plans to deal with this. Of course we want a new hospital but we must consider the implications too. It won’t be much good if we can’t get to it! Cllr Nick Eden-green
Lib Dem city councillor, Wincheap ward