Massive Response to Libdem Health Survey

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 22nd Sep 2007

- More than 2,000 households respond from across the area

- 71% think local NHS services have become worse or much worse

- 91 percent still want a new super-hospital at Hatfield

- 95% want St Albans City Hospital to have elective surgery rather than Hemel and prefer QEII to Lister as the acute hospital

Sandy has been talking to local people about the NHS

There has been a massive response to the Liberal Democrat survey into the state of NHS services in Hertfordshire. 2,024 households have now returned the four-page questionnaire to Sandy Walkington, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for St Albans, and completed questionnaires are still flooding in.

"This is more than five percent of the households in St Albans constituency," Sandy said. "The responses have come evenly from across the whole area - from the banks of the Grand Union Canal in the west to the A1(M) in the east, from Frogmore in the south to the top of Marshalswick in the north. Statistically it is a powerful sample, and the questionnaires all tell the same story - that local people do not believe that Hertfordshire health services have got better - in fact 42% of those responding thought they had become "much worse in recent years". A further 29% thought the local NHS had become slightly worse.

"Only 10 percent of those responding believed that the local NHS in Hertfordshire was a bit better or much better.

"There is a huge amount of detailed information in the returned questionnaires - about local residents' views on GP services, our hospitals, NHS dentistry, and general NHS policy issues. The LibDem team will be analysing and tabulating all the results, both so that we can share them with the Primary Care Trust and the Hospital Trusts and also so that they can inform our national policy development.

"The survey also included some of the key questions around the current consultation on the future of acute hospital services in Hertfordshire, and we have done a quick analysis of these results so that we can input them into the current official consultation on the future of acute services.

"We asked if the Government 'should keep the previous promise to build a 21st-century super-hospital at Hatfield, linked with the university?' A resounding 91 percent of those responding said yes.

"We also asked - quoting the official consultation which was not delivered door-to-door - whether 'the proposed planned (ie non-emergency) surgery unit should be located at Hemel Hempstead hospital or St Albans City Hospital?' An even more emphatic 95 percent of those responding wanted to see the surgery unit located at St Albans. This is of course the most likely outcome of the current review," Sandy said, "but it confirms there is local public support for this proposal.

"The final question directly relevant to the current hospital survey asked if St Albans residents preferred QEII in Welwyn Garden City or Lister at Stevenage as the acute hospital for the north and eastern side of the county, if Hatfield is not built. A similarly emphatic 95% wanted QEII to be the acute hospital.

"These results will be fed into the current consultation which closes on October 1st as a powerful demonstration of the views of St Albans residents," Sandy said. "The results are not too surprising based on history and geography. But local residents pay for the National Health Service out of their taxes, their predecessors dug deep to build the hospitals before the NHS was founded, they have a powerful sense of what they want.

"They are not against change as is shown by the huge demonstration of support for a new hospital at Hatfield. They support the location of elective surgery at St Albans. But they have a very jaundiced view of the merits of choosing Lister over QEII as the only acute hospital with A&E apart from Watford.

"We will be collating and publishing the huge wealth of information from all the other answers as soon as possible. As well as the surveys, people sent back some heart-rending stories of particular cases. And I also received some detailed additional comments from local health professionals. Of course there were some high spots too, some people only had praise for their experiences. It is not all doom and gloom.

"What is clear is that people are passionate and articulate about 'their' National Health Service. And the Trusts in Hertfordshire should be asking themselves some searching questions on the basis of these results," Sandy concluded.

ENDS