QA Hospital facilities can’t keep up with our growing population | Reader’s Letter

Instead of glibly reporting the negative information, is it not possible for someone to investigate why the situation exists?

Only then can sensible measures be implemented to make improvements.

As long back as 25 years many people predicted these problems as the population of the catchment area was rapidly increasing.

The closure of Haslar Hospital without a corresponding increase to the facilities at QA was always going to cause problems.

In the present day the population of the area is growing faster than new facilities can be added to QA.

The CQC report also highlights problems in the A&E area of the hospital.

Unless QA hospital is unique in the number of A&E cases seen per day, surely some research can be done at other stretched A&E units around the country to find out how they cope and deal with issues?

We need to know the facts and not just peddle misconceptions.

If there are better ways of managing the department and staff then it would make sense to adopt those practices.

However, if the problem is the ratio of staff and resources to the number of patients then that must also be addressed.

If QA is significantly underfunded compared to other equivalent hospitals then that should be made known in the CQC reports.

We need to know if QA is really not performing as well as other comparable hospitals or if it is doing an exceptional job given the circumstances but is just not meeting some particular criteria.

It is easy to be negative but maybe we should be constructive about making improvements.

Terry Heath

Waterlooville