A Lancashire NHS leader has admitted he does not know what the response would be from the health service if the people of Preston said they did not want the city’s hospital to be rebuilt in South Ribble. The “preferred option” for a new Royal Preston was revealed last month as a site off Stanifield Lane in Farington, close to the junction of the M65 and M6.
A public engagement exercise is set to begin before the end of January to get people’s thoughts on the proposed plot for the new state-of-the-art facility – which is eight miles away from the Royal Preston’s current home in Fulwood. A formal public consultation would have to follow at a later date before any decision could be taken to go-ahead with the plans, which would see the new-build completed around a decade from now.
However, one Preston councillor has quizzed NHS chiefs on what would happen if residents rejected the idea – while another has demanded NHS chiefs stop referring to the proposed new unit as the “Royal Preston”, because it would be based beyond the city’s borders.
Zafar Coupland, Preston City Council’s cabinet member for health wellbeing, told a recent meeting of Lancashire County Council’s health scrutiny committee that people with poor health want “easily accessible [facilities]”.
“They don’t want to travel too far out of town to get [there because], economically, they’re disadvantaged. [So] once you’ve had all the consultation…if the population comes back and says, ‘Sorry, we want [the] status quo and we don’t want anything moving’, is this exercise going to be…meaningful?
“If Preston has said, ‘No, we don’t want that hospital moving’, is it going to stay?” Cllr Coupland asked directly.
Steve Canty, medical lead for the Lancashire and South Cumbria New Hospitals Programme (NHP), said he “probably couldn’t answer” what he described as “a very difficult question”.
“The main reason that [both Preston and Lancaster] have been part of the New Hospitals Programme is the challenge of the current hospitals – and the cost of continuing to maintain [them] is something that is a significant challenge,” the consultant orthopaedic surgeon explained.
The maintenance backlog at the Royal Preston’s Sharoe Green Lane site – which is approaching 50 years of age – was estimated in 2021 to be £157m.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Mein, Preston South East division representative on the county council, took issue with two aspects of the terminology being used to describe the planned new hospital and its proposed site.
“You call [the Preston and Lancaster sites] ‘preferred locations’ – [but] who prefers those locations? Because I can absolutely guarantee that [for] residents in Preston who currently attend the Royal…that’s not a preferred location for them,” County Cllr Mein said.
She also told New Hospitals Programme system lead Andrew Bennett: “You’re calling it ‘the new Preston hospital’, [but] the preferred site is not in Preston – so don’t call it a new Preston hospital, because it won’t be.”
Mr. Bennett said the new facility would be “a replacement” for the current Royal – but acknowledged that how the new service was described would “matter to people”.
Proposed new Royal Preston site in Farington
(Image: Copyright Unknown)
Addressing fears about difficulty accessing the potential site – close to where an IKEA store was once proposed to be built – Mr. Bennett said: “It’s really clear that various members of the community will have legitimate concerns about such a geographical shift and what that means for issues like travel and transport.
“But, simply, we have tried to identify a location that could deliver the footprint of a modern hospital and then we could build the infrastructure…the communications and the travel and transport around it.”
However, he stressed that the NHS was still open to considering other locations and putting them through the same assessment process as the dozen previously considered for a new Royal Preston. As the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LRS) revealed last month, an “exit strategy” is in place if a more suitable site than the purchased land is found – or if the outcome of a government review into the nationwide New Hospitals Programme means the funding needed for the development is not ultimately delivered.
Jane Kenny, lead nurse for the Lancashire and South Cumbria New Hospitals Programme, said the forthcoming engagement process was “an opportunity for [hospital] users, members of the public and our own staff to really voice their concerns about the potential new sites”.
However, she told the committee that “a huge amount of work” had already been done to “understand the impact” of the preferred location, including on “more vulnerable communities”.
‘ALL VOICES NEED TO BE HEARD’
Lancaster city councillor Martin Gawith, who also sits on the scrutiny committee, said it was important that while public consultation was “a good thing”, it often resulted in “middle-class communities [having] the best roads, the best houses, the best schools [and] the best doctors surgeries”.
“We need a control on that [which] also ensures we’re getting what’s best for [all] our communities – because middle-class networks work exceptionally well in delivering what they want,” he added.
The proposed site for the new Royal Lancaster Infirmary is around two miles from its existing base. It would be built on land at Bailrigg East – between the A6 and the M6 – just north of Lancaster University’s Health Innovation Campus.
CARE CLOSER TO HOME?
Steve Canty told the committee that it was important to consider “how we can bring health closer to communities” – potentially by creating other facilities and “not just considering a hospital as the only place where people access health services”.
Cllr Coupland said people understood that GP surgeries and medical centres would always be dotted around geographically, but that they should still be provided with the “one-stop shop” of a hospital if that is what they want – “not hubs everywhere”.
Meanwhile, County Cllr Mein said she had been involved in discussions over many years about the possibility of a city centre health hub in Preston, but had always been told there was “no money” for it. She expressed concern that the opportunity would once again be lost if the new hospital was developed “in isolation”.
Andrew Bennet said it would be impossible to “convince” people of the need to relocate services unless any new hospital was presented as part of “a connected model of care”.
The idea of a centrally-located health hub is one previously alighted upon by both Preston City Council leader Matthew Brown and Preston MP Sir Mark Hendrick, with the latter last month telling the LDRS that such a facility should be developed in conjunction with a rebuild of the Royal Preston on its current site. He said the new service should function as an urgent treatment centre and said the proposed new hospital South Ribble was “too remote”.
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