QUESTIONS have been raised about the health campus planned at the redeveloped Prince Philip Barracks site in Bordon, by the chairman of the League of Friends at the town’s hospital.

Chairman of the Chase Hospital League of Friends Dr Frank Thomas said this week that the Friends would like to know more about the new health campus to be built at Prince Philip’s Barracks and what clinics, now provided at the Chase Hospital, would be transferred there.

Dr Thomas told the Bordon Herald: “What is puzzling me is, I gather, Bordon fire crews have been given space at Prince Philip Barracks to train, so does that mean the new health campus will go up beside their training area or will it be moved to somewhere else? We would like to know.

“Also, it would be 2020 before the new health centre is built so the Chase, although we will never be a hospital again, is still providing very important services to the town and it looks like for some time.”

On behalf of the NHS, Mark Wingham, from the NHS South Eastern Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group, told the Bordon Herald: “In recent months, the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has relocated all its services under one roof at the Chase - the adult mental-health teams (supporting adults aged 18 to 65); the older people’s mental-health team, which provides assessment, treatment, support and runs two clinics two days a week; and iTalk clinics, which support people suffering from anxiety and depression.

“Other clinics running at the site include the baby clinic; audiology; the catheter and wound clinic; ophthalmology; fall classes; sexual health; musculoskeletal; physiotherapy; leg ulcer; diabetic retinal screening; rheumatology, and paediatrics.

“We are also continuing to explore any opportunities to introduce new services to the site, over and above the existing range of NHS health services already provided.

“The Clinical Commissioning Group announced a few months ago that it would pause its bid for funds to redevelop the hospital while we continue to work with local GPs and partner organisations for an exciting new facility which would provide everything previously included at Chase plus innovative, state-of-the-art models of care not envisaged when the original project was developed.

“Local stakeholders have been fully involved in the process and we are committed to continuing to work with them, and our colleagues at East Hampshire District Council, to ensure that local people have a say in these proposals in future.

“The Chase site is owned by NHS Property Services, not the Clinical Commissioning Group. But no decisions are likely to be made on its future until definite decisions are taken over the proposed new health campus.”

On behalf of the the Whitehill and Bordon Regeneration Company, which is developing Prince Philip Barracks, James Child said: “Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service has taken office space at Prince Philip Barracks and is using some of the buildings and spaces for training while the site remains secure.”

The project lead at the Regeneration Company continued: “Plans for a new health campus are still under development and we would like to open a new health campus at the same time as the new town centre by 2019. We are currently scoping requirements in consultation with GPs, the Chase Community Hospital, the NHS, Hampshire County Council and East Hampshire District Council through the Healthy New Towns programme.”

Since being formed 30 years ago, Chase Hospital’s League of Friends has been one of the most active fundraisers in the town, providing much-needed equipment for the various departments as well as extra comforts for the bed ward.

Dr Thomas admitted the Friends had scaled down their fundraising as little was now needed.

“But we have just purchased a new exercise bike for the physiotherapy department,” he added.

Secretary Norma Scott said: “We have little to fundraise for as we lost our beds a few years ago and now half the hospital is empty.”

Fortunately, she said, the clinics were still running as was the day centre, “but we lost the cafeteria, although our coffee shop is still open”.

It was a question of waiting to see, she said, adding: “It could be a long wait as it think it will be a few years before the new health centre, or hub as they call it, is built. In our committee there are about eight of us - with councillor Yvonne Parker-Smith (Lindford parish and East Hampshire district) our president and Lord Selborne our patron - and we are really just waiting. Any money we might raise in the future will be on hold in case it is needed. When that will be we don’t know. We have to wait for the new town to be built eventually.

“I think the buzz word around Whitehill and Bordon at the moment is ‘eventually’.”

It was just over 20 years ago when the news came through that Bordon and Whitehill was to get its own hospital and the Friends, a band of local people, set out to make it one of the best in the district by helping to provide it with specialist equipment and comforts for future patients to make their stays more pleasant.

That is how Bordon’s Chase Hospital League of Friends came into being in 1987 and two years later work began building the hospital, which was opened in 1991. One of the first pieces of equipment the Friends raised money for was a £75,000 X-ray machine and the unit is still one of the hospital’s busiest.