As part of the continuing "public consultation" over the future of services at West Cornwall Hospital, the Queens Hotel in Penzance is this week the venue for the PCT "roadshows". Local people need to book in advance to secure one of the twenty places per session, However, with just nine sessions offered, the PCT is providing Penzance with just 180 places in total. This has to be compared with the 20,000 people who marched through Penzance last month! Indeed, the entire "roadshow" exercise will only accommodate just over 1000 people, which equates to less than 1% of the population served by the hospital.

There is evidence to suggest that administrative blunders have occurred in booking places for roadshows, with appointments arriving after the session has taken place, or inaccurate information being received about the venue for meetings. Plans to conduct electronic voting on set questions were abandoned at the very first roadshow when participants questioned the validity of the questions being asked. These have been replaced by a paper exercise of new tick boxes which makes for interesting reading:

• Do you accept that if you are critically ill it is better to go to a fully equipped hospital rather than the nearest one?
• Would you accept that we change the name of the casualty as long as the service remains the same or better?
• Would you support the development of new ways of working so that many of these (11 emergency admissions per day at West Cornwall Hospital) could still be assessed and treated at West Cornwall Hospital?

Readers will quickly realise the loading of these questions, and will reach their own conclusions about the health managers' purpose in asking them. HealthWatch Vice-chairman Joe McKenna, who attended the first roadshow in Camborne, said this week: "One has to question whether all the tick boxes should in fact be left blank. It is tantamount to being asked 'Do you want to be shot or hung?' whereas in reality you'd like to stay alive, thank you very much. There is a 'Comments' box at the end of the questionnaire, which provides the opportunity for those who wish to say that Wes Cornwall Hospital should be completely upgraded and to include a 24-hour A&E Department with emergency admissions in order to meet local health needs. If everyone who feels this way were to write this down, then the health managers would surely be forced to admit to the strength of feeling in this community. In the light of this week's new revelations about trolley waits at Treliske and that hospital's continuing crisis in A&E, few people will want to sign up to further centralisation of emergency services at that site."

We now understand that display stands are to be taken to public libraries in towns, with managers on hand to answer questions. However, the issue of consulting the public in remote rural areas has still not been addressed. All the activity is centred on the towns, but in this deeply rural area there are over forty rural parishes, with parish councils, which have so far been ignored in the consultation process. People in the country matter too.

Marna Blundy, HealthWatch co-ordinator, concludes: "All this points to a deeply flawed consultation process. When people gathered in large numbers, for example at St Johns Hall for the meeting in March, or in Penzance for the March in April, the Review Team would not meet with them. These were indeed the "silent majority" who the PCT apparently want to hear. Instead the PCT are seeking out a tiny minority whose questions they are struggling to answer, and whose concerns have yet to be properly addressed. Small wonder that HealthWatch continues to brand the process a sham. The team may be trying to "do things differently", but they will have to try harder if they are to do a "proper job"! "

Co-ordinator: Marna Blundy, 4 Botallack Moor, St Just, PENZANCE, Cornwall TR19 7QH
Tel / Fax 01736 788107
Email: westcornwallhealthwatch@yahoo.co.uk