WE hope South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust will do as its chairman Mike Ridley promised this week and think 'very carefully' about how to make the most of the opportunity of getting real public feedback from next week's two meetings on plans for a new Malvern hospital.

It would be a great shame if what promises to be two very well-attended meetings on Monday and Tuesday at the Forum were to pass without the public being given a real chance to express their views about what kind of services they would like a new Malvern hospital to provide. We have a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not just to provide the services Malvern will need in the future but also to support the over-stretched facilities in Worcester.

We still can't see why, and we have suggested it to the PCT, questionnaires couldn't be produced for next week's meeting on which people could be asked to put numbered preferences beside a range of services which a new hospital could realistically be expected to provide?

At present, the consultation only asks people to say what services they would like, which invites as many different ideas as there are replies.

We don't really see why, as Mr Ridley says this week, it is "not appropriate" to develop more firm proposals mid-way through the consultation process, isn't that part of the point? It also begs the question of why there were not firmer proposals before the process began?

This process has demonstrated the public support for a new hospital in Malvern and we hope next week's meetings will reinforce that message.