• All the while the West Cornwall Hospital Review has been taking place, since early this year, further discussions have been taking place in the county. Unknown to the public at large, senior NHS officials have been putting together a quite separate Strategic Outline Case for the future of all acute hospital services in the county. This, if adopted and funded, will see West Cornwall Hospital become one of three or five "community-type" hospitals providing diagnostic and treatment services but not accident and emergency services which will be centralisedat Treliske.
• · The recent Patient Participation Conference held in Truro has been criticised by members of the public who attended. Not only was the event held at a time when no working members of the population could attend, but it also failed to offer information and discussion about West Cornwall Hospital, as had been outlined in the media, on the grounds that it was too contentious.
• · A meeting called to produce a "framework for evaluating options", with a range of stakeholders including community representatives, was attended largely by NHS staff, and inevitably therefore produced a weighting which appealed more to clinicians than to the patients and public.
• · Last week the Project Manager for the Hospital Review stated that her public consultation process would be starting shortly and that trust would be an important element. She emphasised that the public's role would not be that of a decision-maker, but failed to explain what the public's role actually was.
• · Also last week the RCHT's Director of Planning and Performance, speaking about the nightmare waits being experienced by patients on trolleys at Treliske, told a meeting of the Trust Board that "we can't say we want more capacity because we won't get very far." Instead he outlined a £50,000 pilot scheme designed to "make the best possible emergency service for the people of Cornwall." Yet it seems to patients that more capacity is precisely what IS required.

In response to these latest developments, HealthWatch spokesman Joe McKenna said this week: