Guildford and Waverley Primary care Trust plans to end its consultation on the future of Haslemere Hospital on 28 February. The cornerstone of their plans appears to be the closure or re-designation of some its beds: an outcome that would seriously affect the quality and level of care provided to the local community. To show their opposition to these options, on Saturday 25 February local residents will be marching from Lion Green in Haslemere to Haslemere Hospital. The March will start at 2pm at Lion Green and there will be speeches from local MP Jeremy Hunt and Dr Nicky Lee, Chairman of Haslemere Hospital League of Friends when the March reaches the hospital.Talking about the march to a group of local residents, local MP Jeremy Hunt said:“It is vital that everyone who can attend this March does. At this stage in the consultation process we must show clearly the huge level of support Haslemere has, not just from its local community, but also from areas further away who rely on the expert care it provides.”“The PCT is flying in the face of the Government, the Council’s Scrutiny Committee and, most importantly, its own local community. I want the PCT to see just how strongly we oppose its options, not through the quiet and hidden medium of responding in writing to their consultation, but in public, in the open, for all to see.”Worryingly, the PCT is insisting on perusing its consultation despite clear advice from the Government:“In some cases, PCTs are planning to close local cottage hospitals. Where these closures are due to facilities that are clinically not viable or which local people do not want to use, then local reorganisation is right. But community facilities that are needed for the long term must not be lost in response to short-term budgetary pressures. So we will expect PCTs to reconsider such proposals against the principles of the White Paper.” (Page 144 of the Government White Paper “Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services”)Surrey County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee:“…It [is] unreasonable to expect residents and other stakeholders, or indeed the Committee, to endorse any particular proposal until the implications of all of the options had been more fully developed. From a scrutiny point of view there was not enough information in the document about the health quality outcomes and improvements that the proposals are aimed to achieve, or processes by which they would be measured in order to provide clear evidence of that health improvement. The same concern was expressed about the transparency and clarity of detail relating to financial costings and other resource investment information.” (Quote from a letter to Jeremy Hunt MP from the Health Scrutiny Committee.And local people:“It is essential to keep the local hospitals and services in Haslemere: the outpatients and emergency services are excellent. Guildford is too far.” (Example comment from a local resident responding to the Cross Community Group’s consultation on the PCTs proposals)