It's a very deprived area, so they tried to sell one hospital for redevelopment as housing in order to fund the redevelopment of the overall hospital system, unfortunately they couldn't sell the one they really needed to, so the deal really didn't work out, plus even the better of the other two has major structural issues - it's an old naval hospital that's had continuous add-on patching for decades rather than anything sensibly planned, and it's on a physically constrained site with inadequate parking, yet when they tried to build a parking structure for staff the council restricted them to 2 levels rather than the 4 needed - no one has been able to work out the logic in that decision yet! I was also told while there that they had agreement to move mental health out to somewhere else, to free up three wards desperately needed for medical/surgical use, but the council had been trying to stop them, which is just bizarre. The third hospital is even more physically constrained - it's on a steep hillside between two main roads almost in the centre of town and while its a rather gorgeously gothic Victorian pile is just too physically decrepit to use for modern healthcare.
There's so much blame to go around, but the staff are clearly working their hearts out to deliver the best service possible.
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Date: 2014-12-19 12:02 pm (UTC)It's a very deprived area, so they tried to sell one hospital for redevelopment as housing in order to fund the redevelopment of the overall hospital system, unfortunately they couldn't sell the one they really needed to, so the deal really didn't work out, plus even the better of the other two has major structural issues - it's an old naval hospital that's had continuous add-on patching for decades rather than anything sensibly planned, and it's on a physically constrained site with inadequate parking, yet when they tried to build a parking structure for staff the council restricted them to 2 levels rather than the 4 needed - no one has been able to work out the logic in that decision yet! I was also told while there that they had agreement to move mental health out to somewhere else, to free up three wards desperately needed for medical/surgical use, but the council had been trying to stop them, which is just bizarre. The third hospital is even more physically constrained - it's on a steep hillside between two main roads almost in the centre of town and while its a rather gorgeously gothic Victorian pile is just too physically decrepit to use for modern healthcare.
There's so much blame to go around, but the staff are clearly working their hearts out to deliver the best service possible.