I WAS present at the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust consultation meeting at Auckland Castle on December 4 and read your article (Echo, Dec 9) in which the trust said the proposals for Bishop Auckland General Hospital are for the benefit of patients.

I cannot agree with this because the trust recently stated it needed to spend £30m refurbishing buildings at Darlington Memorial Hospital, replacing plumbing, wiring, heating, windows, etc – also that the accident and emergency acute care departments are bursting at the seams and need extending.

How can they even consider sending more patients to those overstretched departments?

I believe the trust is approaching the problems the wrong way around.

We have, in Bishop Auckland, a superb up-to-date hospital being downgraded and vastly underused.

Common sense tells me we should be putting as much resources as possible into this hospital, developing A&E and acute care units and other services to their maximum.

I am sure this will lead to the following: attracting more doctors back to the hospital; most importantly, give our patients a safer and better service and care; relieve pressure on the Darlington hospital’s overstretched departments; and make refurbishing Darlington easier and cause its patients less inconvenience and trauma.

R Stickells, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham.

I WOULD like to pose four questions to County Durham Primary Care Trust regarding the proposed changes at Bishop Auckland General Hospital.

Firstly, why was it planning downgrading the new hospital by transferring services to Darlington Memorial Hospital before it was even built? Such a situation is irrefutable bearing in mind that both projects were subject to feasibility studies, and because of the timing had to be running in tandem.

Secondly, how can it justify spending £38m to achieve its plans for Darlington, when we have a state-of-the-art hospital at Bishop Auckland?

Thirdly, with regard to the assertion that Bishop Auckland is not attracting medical staff.

This was never a problem before it embarked upon the downgrading plans.

Fourthly, as a result of the proposed plans for Darlington how is it going to cope with the increased patient, and visitor, car parking, when it does not accommodate this problem at present?

J Bulmer, Spennymoor, Co Durham.