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The Reader: Whipps Cross hospital plan is not fit for purpose

We WRITE in response to your article [“I can see the case for rebuilding Whipps Cross, says minister,” March 23] about the redevelopment of Whipps Cross Hospital in east London.

Waltham Forest Save our NHS, the local health campaign group, has grave concerns that the proposed new hospital may not be fit for purpose because of funding constraints imposed by the Government.

In the initial plan submitted we could have 83 fewer beds than we do now. Despite it being recognised that in 15 years’ time the population growth in north-east London will be equivalent to a new borough.

Barts Health NHS Trust has already had the plan knocked back and has been told to find ways to reduce costs and increase the income it raises from the land.

With the squeeze on funding, NHS trusts expected to sell off their land and pressure to build new housing, we are concerned that the land sale at Whipps Cross will be to the detriment of the new hospital. Especially as the plan submitted refers to Barts Trust being: ”in need of cash in the short term” from land receipts.

There is a real risk that a hospital that cannot cater for thousands more residents will mean even greater delays at A&E, longer waits for treatment and inadequate healthcare for people in Waltham Forest and Redbridge.
Mary Burnett and Norma Dudley
Waltham Forest Save our NHS

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Mary and Norma

Whipps Cross hospital is lucky to be held to account by such enthusiastic campaigners, as is its parent trust, Barts Health. Most campaigners have been around far longer than the hospital managers and want what is best for the East End and beyond.

The reality, though, is that much of the Whipps Cross site is in dire need of renovation. It is a tragedy that so much of it has been left to go to ruin.

Yes, the populations of Waltham Forest and Redbridge are growing, and ageing. It is not uncommon for Whipps Cross A&E to be full of patients in their 90s (while the new paediatric A&E has sick toddlers).

The answer cannot be to treat growing numbers of patients in expensive acute hospital beds. The solution must surely involve the trust funding a modern hospital by cashing in on this land for housing (while retaining freehold rights, and thus a long-term income stream).

Barts Health’s chief, Alwen Williams, understands this. Health Secretary Matt Hancock appears to too. It’s time for action and hard cash. Community support could help overcome this considerable challenge.

Ross Lydall, Health Editor

Politicians need to sell pros of Europe

How could we end up with such an incompetent Prime Minister? Easy. She’s part of a factional party that has six different propositions to leave Europe and she has developed no route to unity. And she never will. No one has thought through the history of why Europe is hated by so many in Britain or done something about it over 46 years of EU membership.

A reminder: 48 per cent wanted to stay in Europe, despite such a lack of participation by MPs in European government and institutions. Perhaps our politicians should ask themselves why so many wanted to stay in the EU, particularly an incoherent, strategy-deficient PM.

British politicians need to take up the European challenge, get involved and sell the positive case for Europe to UK residents. Can it be done? Of course, but it requires intelligent politicians with purpose and strategy. I have written to my Conservative MP along these lines but only had the standard electronic reply.
Hugh Bunce

Galleries should not refuse cash

I was planning to visit the Diane Arbus exhibition at the Hayward Gallery — until a friend told me it does not accept cash between 10am and 5pm. It is outrageous for a public gallery in the centre of London to refuse cash. Not everyone has credit cards, and not everyone wants to use them for small purchases. Not everyone will use debit cards — and certainly not contactless cards.

As part of the South Bank complex — which was originally at least partly funded by public money — the Hayward has a duty to serve all of society, not just some of it.
Marcia MacLeod

Choice: the issue on assisted dying

Far from being a “settled issue” — as is the global warming debate — the Royal College of Physicians’ efforts to obtain and act on a democratic mandate of its membership on assisted dying has stirred up a hornet’s nest among religious bodies.

The fate of someone dying in extremis is emotive, but ending the agony with medical assistance should be a choice that is available to the patient. Strident views from religious activists in support of an anachronistic belief are wholly inappropriate.
John Cameron