Our proposals take into consideration travel times for people to reach hospital and the ease of getting to each site, including parking. The proposals for how services should be provided in the future potentially creates an increased travel journey for approximately 30% of patients living in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland who need acute hospital care, but will decrease travel time for others. This increase is mainly for those patients living in the east of the area and who use services that would move from the General Hospital to Leicester Royal Infirmary or Glenfield Hospital.
The impact would be offset in part by the proposed increase in outpatient and follow-up appointments being undertaken in the community closer to where patients live, and through the increased use of technology. This will have the additional benefit of helping to reduce the NHS’ carbon footprint.
Journey times for the majority (around 70%) of patients would not increase and would reduce for many given the location of the proposed Treatment Centre at the Glenfield Hospital and its relative accessibility compared to the city centre location of Leicester Royal Infirmary. In addition, the need to transfer patients between three acute sites would reduce considerably with proposals to have two acute sites.
The re-location of significant numbers of planned care services and outpatient clinics to the Glenfield Treatment Centre would also mean that traffic and congestion around the Royal Infirmary would be less of an issue. The creation of new car parks at both the Royal and Glenfield would help ease current parking difficulties.
In terms of public transport, all three hospital sites are served by a multi-site bus service. This is a minimal-stop shuttle service and is free to use by staff at all times and those with concessionary passes in off-peak hours. Journey times between sites are between 20 and 30 minutes, with the shuttle stop coinciding with other local bus stops.
We recognise that transport is a very important consideration for our patients and staff and we will use feedback from the consultation to help us with our plans.