A meeting is being held in St Albans for residents to hear about the NHS’s latest proposals for developing hospital sites in west Herts.

Campaigners have long argued that a central A&E hospital between St Albans, Watford and Dacorum would better serve residents’ needs than the existing services at Watford General.

More recently, Herts Valley Clinical Commissioning Group (HVCCG) is considering a new hospital for greenfield land between St Albans and Hemel Hempstead.

The meeting for St Albans and Harpenden residents is being held at Trinity Church Hall in Beaconsfield Road, St Albans from 7pm to 9pm on Wednesday, October 24. Earlier meetings are being held in Borehamwood on Wednesday, October 17 and in Dacorum on Tuesday, October 23, and a later meeting will be held in Watford on Tuesday, November 6.

Each meeting will be led by West Herts Hospitals Trust (WHHT) and HVCCG, and will explain work that is happening over the next few months on the strategic outline case (SOC) for redeveloping hospital sites.

Helen Brown, acting chief executive at WHHT, said: “We’re doing some further work to our strategic outline case to satisfy NHS Improvement and NHS England that our plans are solid.

“Things have moved on in the 12 months since we submitted our strategic outline case and in view of that we need to look again at some of our figures, both around patient numbers and finances. In particular we need to look at how we can make our plans as affordable as possible by looking at how we can do the development in phases.

“While we’re doing that additional work we’ll look at the feasibility of an alternative option that would bring planned care onto a single site. However, the proposal to develop planned care on the St Albans and Hemel Hempstead hospital sites as set out in the original SOC currently remains our preferred way forward.”

The meetings will also explain how WHHT and HVCCG plan to involve residents in work to refine the hospital plans, and attendees will have a chance to put questions to executive officers and health professionals.

To book attendence email communications.hvccg@nhs.net specifying which meeting you want to attend and stating if you have any accessibility needs.