THE decision to close A&E and maternity wards at the QE2 Hospital in WGC will be reviewed, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has announced.
Mr Lansley said clear, clinical reasons must exist for an NHS trust to change the services it provides.
He added that changes must also have the support of local GPs and allow patients to choose where they are treated.
The criteria applies to all those NHS trusts which plan to change their services, as well as those which have already unveiled plans to alter health-care provision.
The latter category includes East and North Herts NHS Trust, which wants to close the A&E and maternity departments at the QE2 and centralise them at the Lister in Stevenage.
For more on this story, see this week’s Welwyn Hatfield Times, out on Wednesday.
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