Hornsey Hospital move will help claw back £110,000

Regarding recent correspondence on the Hornsey Central Hospital and Fortis Green Clinic, I have made some enquiries and the following may be of help.

The main aim in providing care closer to home is not to save money, but to ensure early and more appropriate treatment and create less disruption to the lives of patients. In order to create such provision, new and better facilities need to be built while older facilities might need to be closed. Funding for the NHS in London has been problematic recently, resulting in a delay in making decisions about these new facilities.

The Haringey Primary Care Trust's proposals for re-building Hornsey Central Hospital are precisely to develop more services closer to home. They have come under serious scrutiny by Haringey Council.

In order to help fund the new facilities the PCT needs to sell off surplus land at Hornsey Central and the Fortis Green clinic. The council decided not to refer the sale of Fortis Green clinic to the Secretary of State because the PCT has found a temporary home in Muswell Hill for the services which have been provided there and has said that it will review the arrangement again before any final decision about moving the services to Hornsey.

In moving the services, it might be noted that there will be a saving of £110,000 a year in running costs.

As there were no proposals to change actual services, the proposed Fortis Green changes were put forward in a discussion document, not a consultation document.

The focus is on services, not buildings - although part of the improvement in primary care is to locate it in practices whose fabric is better than currently exists in west Haringey.

Ian Hunt

Church Crescent, N10