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The closures will come, but only once the groundwork is all in place.

Once it would be the fault of elected politicians if faceless 'health chiefs' got their way and shut a hospital. Very soon it will be possible to blame either GPs, or - best of all - the patients themselves.

"But you didn't *choose* your local hospital", they'll be told. "If you valued it so much, why didn't you get treated there more often?"

Of course, everyone who wanted the hospital to stay open will assume that they were among the loyal group who kept on choosing local, and that it must be the fault of their particular scapegoat group that the place shut.