Call for health services to remain in the city

Preston’s council leader says some form of hospital should remain within the city itself – even if plans to open a new one in neighbouring South Ribble get the go ahead.

Matthew Brown was speaking after the NHS revealed it had bought a site in Farington where it is proposing to build a new, state-of-the-art Royal Preston to replace the current ageing facility in Fulwood.

The plans remain provisional – and will subject to public engagement and consultation – but if they come to pass, the hospital will shift eight miles from its present home on Sharoe Green Lane to a plot off Stanifield Lane, close to the where the M65 and M6 motorways meet.

Information released by NHS to coincide with the announcement about the purchase of the site floated the idea of creating a “health hub” in Preston in order to continue to provide some services “closer to where people live and work”.

While Cllr Brown has previously been an advocate of such a facility, he says the prospect of the Royal leaving the city whose name it bears merits an even more substantial unit being created – potentially in the form of a new building on the existing hospital site once it is vacated.

“A lot of the diagnostic and other services which are provided at RPH could be moved into the community – in South Ribble and Chorley, as well as Preston.

“But we’re going to be arguing for a hospital facility within the local authority area, because…we’re a very working class and diverse community – and our health is often much worse than when you move into more prosperous areas.

“I just think it makes sense that the health facilities are nearest [to where] health problems are worst.

“What we are pushing for is some kind of health hub in the city centre, which would have new services [and could] take away some existing services [currently] delivered at RPH – and then we could also look at a potential rebuild at RPH.

“Then some of the other services could be provided [at the new hospital] in another part of Central Lancashire,” Cllr Brown explained.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service before the council leader made his comments, Rebecca Malin, programme director for the new hospitals programme in Lancashire and South Cumbria, said the NHS says it will “consider the needs” of patients when deciding what health services should remain in the heart of Preston.

Bosses have also moved to reassure residents that “a major part of the planning” for the new development will involve ensuring it is “as easy as possible for people…to get there by car, public transport and other means of travel”.

Ms. Malin added that the NHS had already started work to assess what would still be on offer in the city itself, but said it was as yet too soon to say “what services will remain in Preston or whereabouts they will be”.

She added that the new facilities were also being designed against the backdrop of a shift to more community-based services which “don’t need to be [delivered] in an acute hospital building”.

Preston MP Sir Mark Hendrick said at a hustings event in the run-up to the summer’s general election that while he would have preferred a replacement Royal Preston to be built in Preston itself, its location elsewhere in Central Lancashire did not spell the end for the hospital’s base of 50 years – because it was not “an either/or situation”.

“Once a site has been chosen, some services which are obviously overloading Royal Preston – and some that are overloading Chorley [Hospital] – will be moved and relocated there.

“There will be [a] spreading around of the services, but it’s not going to replace Preston…it’ll be an add on,” the veteran politician said.

The LDRS has approached Sir Mark for comment on the unveiling of the preferred site for the new hospital.