Staff have been told that developments in healthcare mean that the current services that are delivered across Surrey are no longer sustainable and service reorganisation is needed to improve patient outcome.

This is a sentiment that residents can all identify with, however as residents of Spelthorne have found in the past they will violently disagree with the methods used to deliver these services once the details are released to the public.

They are also told that minor changes are unlikely to be sufficient; residents can expect to see a higher concentration of specialist services on fewer sites.

Change has already started to happen with the shift of care from acute hospitals into the community, these include GPs, nurse practitioners with special interests, community matrons and more care being delivered into the patients' own homes.

We all know the quality of the clinical treatment we receive from staff is excellent but this new move means that there will be a reduction in nursing care and the public will have to nurse their sick relatives in their own homes.

It is expected that to improve value for money the full A&E services will be concentrated on one of three sites in Surrey and cooperation between Royal Surrey County Hospital and Ashford St Peter's Hospitals will increase.

My question is how far will Stanwell and other Spelthorne residents have to travel if it is not at Ashford?

There will be another Orwellian consultation in November but we know from the last consultation that what the people wanted was not included as one of the options.

It has been written there are three types of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics. Is the New Labour Government trying to exclude Spelthorne from the NHS?

COUN JACK PINKERTON Stanwell North ward