2.25 Staff and public consultation by St Mary's NHS Trust showed a high level of support for the vision of the health Campus. However, support by both staff and the public from the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust' two sites was mixed. Royal Brompton-based staff were generally more in favour of the proposal than Harefield- based staff (Figure 4).
2.26 In September 2002, a first detailed draft of all the clinical output specifications was produced. This showed that the planned Campus buildings were insufficient in scale to contain the proposed clinical activity. Although the Clinical Reference Group reviewed and accepted the proposed clinical content, Westminster Primary Care Trust noted at the Joint Project Board in April 2003 that, in fact, no agreement had been reached on service strategies and affordability, so the clinical content remained unconfirmed. However in June 2003 the Strategic Health Authority, approved the scheme with the support of the three main Primary Care Trusts.
2.27 Discussions on the clinical configuration of services continued to the end of the scheme and were a particular cause of concern to clinicians at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust. In December 2004, in response to concerns expressed by clinicians, the confidential session of the Trust Board considering a new OBC was assured by the acting Chief Executive that the Campus option, as stated, was not the final product. It was advised that there would be opportunities to make changes, including to the functional content of the OBC, between approval of the OBC and the production of the full business case. The Brompton Trust has told us that this assurance was given on the good faith understanding that a PFI procurement partner would provide value in the development of output based specifications into a building solution better than that proposed in the OBC. There was no price identified as the likely cost of this assurance.
4 | Staff willingness to move from Brompton and Harefield sites to the Paddington Health Campus | |||
| Intending to move (Per cent) | Not intending to move (Per cent) | Unsure (Per cent) | |
Brompton staff | 24 | 33 | 44 | |
Harefield staff | 8 | 64 | 28 | |
Overall | 19 | 46 | 35 | |
Source: The Quality of Working Life Survey: Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, Institute of Employment Studies, 2003 | ||||
2.28 Public support for the scheme in the Harefield area was limited by two factors:
■ The scheme involved the transfer of clinical services from Harefield hospital to the Paddington Basin site and the consequent closure of Harefield hospital; and
■ Supporters of Harefield hospital were not happy with the integrity of the consultation process. The public consultation on specialist acute services (including those at Harefield hospital) closed in November 2000. But the OBC was developed before that date, a planning application for the Campus scheme was submitted in June 2000, a Project Director was advertised for in July 2000 and the OBC approved in October 2000.
2.29 Supporters of Harefield hospital created the Heart of Harefield group in July 2000 to take forward their opposition to the closure of Harefield and, later, the escalating cost of the Campus scheme. The campaign to save Harefield hospital provided a continual check and challenge on the viability of the Campus scheme to the Board of the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital NHS Trust and to the scheme.