Letters

Your leader, 'So farewell, Casualty Watch' (comment, page 19, 29 March), was well written but premature. Every month in Bexley's Queen Mary's Hospital, community health council members Margaret and Peggy count patients waiting to go on wards, to be seen by doctors, or just waiting to be seen by anybody.

This will continue, month in and month out, until the last breath is squeezed out of Bexley CHC, sometime next year.

Then, I am sure, patients will require the new patients' forum or council, or whatever, to continue to visit the accident and emergency department to do exactly the same - watch that patients get a fair deal out of their hospital services.

So, HSJ, thank you for your comments, well deserved for many years of hard work by uncomplaining volunteers in the CHC movement, and by the CHC at Southwark for its consistent management support over many, many years.

But do not count your chickens yet.

Bill Coltham Chief officer Bexley CHC