Delay in relocating services from Mount Vernon Cancer Care Centre labelled "appalling"

Although it is in the London borough of Northwood, most of the patients are from Herts and other authorities including Bedford, Central Beds, Luton and Bucks.

Proposals to relocate the cancer centre to a new site adjoining Watford General Hospital were drawn-up in the wake of an urgent review.

That review, in 2019, said the current MVCC site – built as a TB hospital in 1904 – was ‘dilapidated and not fit for purpose’.

And it pointed to the need to relocate specialist cancer services in a new centre on an acute hospital site.

Earlier this year it emerged that there were plans for public consultation on the plans to relocate the cancer services.

And on Tuesday a meeting of the county council’s health scrutiny committee agreed to the make-up of a new joint health overview and scrutiny committee that would run alongside the NHS consultation.

But at that meeting Conservative Cllr Richard Thake highlighted the five and a half years that had already passed since the “urgent” review.

And after suggesting that the current Mount Vernon site was “falling to bits”, he said that progress needed to be accelerated.

“Five years on – or five-and-a-half years on – we’re setting-up a joint overview and scrutiny committee,” he said.

“I mean, frankly it’s appalling.

“It is very clear in this report – and in previous reports we have had – that there are great shortcomings, despite the incredible work they are doing.

“This is not a criticism of Mount Vernon – but the place is falling to bits.

“It hasn’t got the capacity to add the care, the additional care, that is required to make a comprehensive cancer thing.

“This frankly has got to be accelerated. And I wish the joint committee every success going forward. But frankly, five-and-a-half years on from an urgent review is appalling.”

Agreeing with Cllr Thake, Liberal Democrat Cllr Chris White said this was “a symptom of how we do public assets in the UK”, rather than of Mount Vernon in particular.

And he said there was a “great keenness” amongst councils and councillors – “shared utterly by the NHS” – to “get a move on”.

“In terms of Mount Vernon as it currently stands, it’s a curious beast actually, because it’s a mixture of falling-to-bits and unbelievable hi-tech,” he said.

“And it’s amazing what they have done even between the visits I have made, spaced about two years apart, in terms of getting-in new machinery and having new treatment and assessment centres.

“What’s there and modern is one of those old fashion phrases no doubt, the ‘envy of the world’.

“It’s just that the estate itself is elsewhere is a problem.”

And Cllr White went on to stress the need for specialist cancer services not to be remote from acute services.

As well as four members from Hertfordshire County Council, the new joint health overview and scrutiny committee would include representatives from 10 councils who residents use services at Mount Vernon.

They are the London boroughs of Hillingdon and Harrow, Buckinghamshire, Brent, Ealing, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton and Slough.

The number of members from each council has been determined depending on the ‘patent flow’ from each authority into Mount Vernon.

And the committee will be asked to hold four meetings addressing different topics relating to the consultation.