St Richard's - reference to Secretary of State welcome

9.22.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 25th Jul 2008

St Richard's - its future won't be decided for another eight months

The decision to refer the changes to the NHS in West Sussex to the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, is welcome and it became inevitable.

Anyone following the debate closely couldn't but fail to notice that the Primary Care Trust's plans for the future arrangements for health services in West Sussex in general and hospitals in particular left more answers than questions.

Let's hope that the Independent Reconfiguration Panel will examine the Primary Care Trust's judgement more critically than the PCT's own "independent" review.

Just how does Worthing score 9 on a inequality rating but St Richard's only 3? How important is hospital care to tackling health inequalities compared with access to good primary and community care, anyway? Why were half the criteria ignored when choosing between Worthing and Chichester? Why were two-thirds of the dimensions for scoring between Worthing and Chichester ignored? Does a consultant led maternity unit really need 4,000 births to be viable? How will people in the Midhurst or on the Manhood get to Worthing in an emergency? What justification is there for downgrading an award winning hospital like St Richard's with all the implications it has for its future viability in terms of recruitment and retention of key staff?