It seems that the Government are considering closing some hospital departments, such as maternity units and cancer clinics, and transferring these specialities to large regional centres.
This has always happened to some extent, - eye treatment has been regionalised, for example. It may mean that patients will have the services of the very best staff and equipment, unavailable if provision was more scattered.
But, and it is a very big but, the poor patient must be prepared to travel further, and his loved ones also to visit him. The NHS may save some expenditure, - we suspect part of the purpose, but patients and visitors must travel much further. Indeed, given the cost of travel and parking at hospitals, it seems likely that there will be fewer visitors or fewer visits, which will not help patient recovery.
Some of the distances could be very large. For example Ipswich residents are fearful that their department for head and neck cancer will eventually be relocated to Norwich, some 40 miles away. (Is this another example of a Government which does not understand rural life at all?)
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