NHS West Hertfordshire: Campaigners raise funds for new hospital project

An independent fundraising campaign has been started by volunteers to build a new NHS hospital for a community.

The West Herts 21st Century Hospital group have said the current plans to refurbish Watford General Hospital represent poor value for the taxpayer.

It is crowdfunding to pay for a business consultant and an architect for a new hospital to serve Watford, Hemel Hempstead and St Albans.

The local health commissioner said it had concerns about the costs involved.

The West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Watford General Hospital, Hemel Hempstead Urgent Treatment Centre and St Albans City Hospital, is seeking £350m from the government after it made a decision to retain emergency facilities in Watford and spend money on modernising facilities.

NHS Improvement has been considering its expansion proposal since February 2017.

The campaigning group aims to raise £38,000 to pay for experts to help the NHS Trust prove to the Department of Health and Social Care that a new hospital for west Hertfordshire is the best and most cost-effective solution to what they describe as "chronically poor hospital facilities and services in our area".

"This may be our last chance," a spokesman said.

Campaigner Shirley Nash said: "We need a new 21st Century hospital in West Herts now - a centrally located hospital with good public transport links."

The Liberal Democrat elected mayor of Watford, Peter Taylor, said the town needs new and improved facilities at Watford General and it was "time to deliver hospital facilities fit for the 21st Century for staff and patients".

A spokesman for the Herts Valleys NHS Clinical Commissioning Group said: "We are aware of some support for a new emergency and planned care hospital on a new site."

The CGC said it estimated the cost of a new hospital "vastly exceeds" the £350m cost of modernising the three facilities in Watford, Hemel and St Albans.