Health & Welfare

Harpenden Community First Responders

Dr Bethan Rees with Ian Barrison

Health & Welfare

The Society welcomed an excellent presentation on Children and Young Person’s mental health by Dr Alison Cowan in October 2024. Hertfordshire now has a single  point of access for those seeking support on 0800 6444 101- a 24 hour helpline.

Mental Health Urgent Care Centre

A new service has been made available this year to adults who are in need of  urgent mental health support. The Mental Health Urgent Care Centre (MHUCC) is open 24/7 at the Lister Hospital Campus in Stevenage. It is being provided by HPFT – the Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. The facility offers an alternative to long waits and crowded spaces for those in a mental health crisis.

It aims to provide a comprehensive assessment within a few hours of a patient arriving at the centre. The  team  works with the patient  to create a care plan.This could be support to keep the patient safe at home or transfer to an inpatient bed.

St Albans Hospital

New Services are  being introduced at St Albans City Hospital. An area has been cleared, making way for three new operating theatres and a new surgical procedure room. Hospital leaders have  said that there should be  shorter waiting times are on the horizon for patients from Hertfordshire and West  Essex, who require non emergency surgery,including non complex orthopaedic surgery, spinal injections and ENT( ear nose and throat) procedures.

Two of the theatres and the procedure room in the new block will be for patients whose care is provided by either East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust or West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which have all worked on this project, together with the Herts and  West Essex Integrated Care Board.

The hub is mostly being funded by NHS England using national funding for tackling waiting lists which built up during the Covid-19 pandemic. The facility is due to treat more than 4,400 patients a year with about half going home the same day and the others staying for one night. The trusts have said that as well as a shorter waiting times, there will be an "extremely low risk of cancellations or delays" because the schedules are not affected by emergency surgery.

The surgical hub should open in May 2025.

Mount Vernon Cancer Centre

The future of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre has been the subject of a review, which concluded that the best option was for it to be co located on the eventual new Watford General Hospital site.

Watford General Hospital

Confirmation that the redevelopment of Watford General Hospital is going ahead as part of the New Hospital Programme should be positive news for patients, staff, and for the redevelopment of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre. Unfortunately, the earliest start date for building on the Watford site is 2032, and may be as late as 2034.This delay will increase the need for West Herts Trust to spend precious capital funding on maintaining a rapidly  deteriorating building fabric,and implies at least 10 years, and probably longer, before the new hospital and the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre are up and running.

University of Hertfordshire

The General Medical Council approved the first stage of the University of Hertfordshire’s application to establish an Undergraduate Medical School. The first wave of fee paying International students are scheduled to start in September 2026: followed by UK students in September 2027. Eventually,70 students will be enrolled each year.

Harpenden PCN

The Harpenden  PCN has  introduced vaccination against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) for residents aged  75- 79 and  women who are at least 28 weeks pregnant.

Harpenden Community First Responders

The Harpenden Community First Responders continue to provide outstanding care for Harpenden residents. Apart from rapid assessment and resuscitation,the CFR’s run regular training sessions on how to perform Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation. They remain a vital part of care in our area. Further information can be found at  www.Harpendenresponders.org.uk.

Ian Barrison

The Red House Saga - a bit of history

The Harpenden Society have for many years, been leading the campaign to ensure that the Red House site is developed with an ongoing medical service for the Harpenden community. And in support they established the Red House Forum in 2012, a ginger group with across-the-board membership, to steer the campaign. Key organisers, still active being Chris Marsden, former Harpenden Society chair, as chairman, with Eric Midwinter and Cllr Teresa Heritage.

This saga shows no sign of resolution despite promises from various NHS providers in the last decade. The Covid pandemic is of course a legitimate reason for delayed action of significance so it is worthwhile to remind ourselves at how we arrived in the current situation. The last 3 years have been traumatic.

April 2018

The owners of the site Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) finally presented their plans for a redevelopment of the whole of the existing Harpenden Memorial Hospital site. They would create a new Health and Wellbeing Centre in the existing Stewarts building (ready for use' by late 2020) funded by the sale of the remainder of the site for a new housing development and the Red House building being converted into apartments..

January 2019

The future of the Red House development (including the Health and Wellbeing Centre ) was thrown into doubt by fundamental changes in NHS operating structures. Ownership of the site was transferred to Central London Community Healthcare Trust (CLCH) as the new provider for adult community health services in west Hertfordshire from the Autumn.

September 2019

CLCH announced that the planned opening of Harpenden's Health & Wellbeing Centre would now be delayed until 2023. As the new guardians of the site they have had to assess all the previous work by the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, much of it complex, before rationalising and submitting their plans and budgets to Government. The revised plans were due for approval in 18 moths time ( March 2021) with the opening now planned for 2023.

December 2019

A site meeting at the Red House revealed further delays. Two representatives of Capita on behalf of Central London Community HealthCare NHS Trust advised the following:

They are reviewing the whole concept proposed by HCT including using the site for house building.

They presented us with floor plans of the Red House building to show Phase 1 of the upgrades which will allow for additional services such as Podiatry, Tissue viability, Bladder and Bowel to be introduced, subject to internal sign off. Works were due to start in early March 2020 and they hoped to complete phase 1 by June.

Further information on the critical development of medical services will be advised going forward. The COVID pandemic curtailed most of the activity and all communication during the year.

January 2021

Email contact was made with the Capita contact as per Dec 2019. They advised that the Covid difficulties had caused delays but some progress had been made in the areas we have upgraded. The Main Red House building is currently rolling out the Vaccine to NHS staff & Care Home Staff, and CLCH NHS Trust have continued to carry out the upgrade works to the building so this is ready for the services once we are able to stand this back up.

CLCH have to date in the Red House:

• Carried out a new roof extension
• Installed New Fire Alarm
• New Boilers
• New electrics
• New Air Condition units.

The main corporate management team have now relocated into the 1st floor, with additional transformation plans to be rolled out when it is safe to do so. The Stewarts is now owned and managed by another NHS Trust - Hertfordshire Mental Health trust so it does not feature directly in their plans.

History of Public Meetings