Healthcare for London has released the results of the consultation for four major trauma centres in central London and eight hyper-acute stroke units, well in advance of their meeting on July 20, when a decision is to be made on these proposals for the future. I wonder why?

It says it has set out proposals for the creation of new world-class specialist centres, which would provide immediate care for stroke and major trauma patients and save 500 lives a year.

I cannot see how it can be classed as immediate care, with the delay in being diagnosed first by ambulance staff, with a long, time-consuming journey to follow, for gravely ill patients to reach the proposed central London hospitals.

The very low figure in saving extra lives quoted at 500 is not surprising.

Considering the quoted costs of these mammoth proposals, £23 millioninvestment per year (on top of the £65m, already spent on stroke), an extra £9m to £12m per year on major trauma, you have to wonder, in this financial climate, how sustainable these proposals would be, where in 2011 funding is going to be vastly reduced.

In financial terms you must consider that 11,500 Londoners suffer a stroke each year, of whom 2,000 now die.

Not quoted are how many are left with severe after-effects — long-term personal care, or rehabilitation with high costs, some of which would have been caused by delay in receiving the very fast treatment needed to prevent the very fast loss of brain cells.

It quotes 1,666 major trauma incidents in London per year with complex injuries, often as a result of serious road traffic accidents, or firearms.

It doesn’t give the figures of those who die now, after being transported all the way into central London.

Ivy Beard, Littlebrook Gardens, Cheshunt