She explained how the three hospital model being proposed broadly retains the existing services.
“A substantial new build at Watford would bring fantastic opportunities to improve services. In our new facilities we are hoping to have significantly more single bed impatient rooms. We are looking at 75 to 80 per cent of all in-patient accommodation in single rooms.
“St Albans will be our main surgical and cancer care site. It already is the site where we do a lot of planned surgery and we want to develop and enhance that service offer at St Albans. One of the key things we want to do at St Albans is improve and increase the amount of diagnostics provision there to support planned care pathways and a much better coordinated model.
By Deborah Price Local Democracy Reporter - Hertfordshire
What a redeveloped Watford General Hospital could look like. Credit: West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust Plans for the rebuilding of Watford General Hospital and redevelopment of two other hospitals on existing sites have been backed by a county council watchdog group. At a meeting of the West Hertfordshire Hospital Trust health infrastructure plan topic group on Monday, the group discussed the trust s preferred option to spend the majority of government funding on refurbishing Watford General Hospital. The topic group, working on behalf of Hertfordshire health scrutiny committee, agreed with the broad proposal and rationale for the rebuild of Watford General Hospital and the redevelopment of St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead Hospitals on the existing sites .