New stroke unit for Market Harborough

People get upset when NHS facilities are closed without proper consultation. Here in Market Harborough we are experiencing the opposite: a new unit has been opened without consultation.

The Harborough Mail reports:

Health campaigners have reacted with astonishment to the announcement that a new stroke unit has opened in Harborough – despite the fact that the document it was proposed in is still going through the consultation process.

Baffled Harborough residents say it shows Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust s showing no regard to the public consultation that is not due to end until mid-2008.

The new stroke unit serving south Leicestershire opened at St Luke’s Hospital in Leicester Road on Monday following an announcement from the PCT last week.

This was first mooted as a possible ‘opportunity’ in a PCT report in March – but bosses said this was dependent on a consultation where they wanted to hear everyone’s views.

And it is good to see my old Liberal colleague from Harborough District Council, Phil Knowles, represented with a typically forthright comment:

“It’s baffling. We were told that everything was put on hold until the end of a consultation period and everything was being considered in a big countywide melting pot – and now we hear about this.

“It feels like the whole consultation process is flying by the seat of its pants. It’s deeply concerning.”