Working paper 3 describes the 10 criteria against which we propose to evaluate the options for both local care hospitals and the critical care hospitals.
The proposals for local care hospitals will be based on our objective of spreading more widely the provision of many services to serve existing conurbations.
In June we will therefore propose a network of local care hospitals, and comment on how we feel this network matches up to our criteria. During the consultation period (July-October) we will then be happy to discuss whether any modification to this network would be an even better fit against these 10 criteria.
The proposal for siting the critical care hospital involves a different sort of decision where is the best single location to support the network of local care hospitals. This is much more likely to involve trade-offs between criteria. Or to put it another way, it is unlikely that any of the three options will be best on all 10 criteria in which case we need to take a view on which criteria are most important to be met.
We do not yet have a view on the relative importance of each of the criteria, and this is something we want to arrive at through a structured process.
Whilst we do not intend at this stage to propose weightings, we do want to articulate two possible options for the process.
One is to sort the 10 criteria into, say, three categories: Crucial, very important and important.
(Nothing is unimportant; otherwise it would not even be on the list).
Then decide how to weight the three categories for instance, crucial criteria are double the weight of very important, which in turn are double the important. (Thus the weights are 4:2:1)
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The other is to say that there are 100 points to allocate over the 10 criteria; and reach a view by discussion about how many each should have, relative to one another.
The first method is quicker and simpler. The second method allows for more subtle differentiation, since each criteria can have its own weight.
The issue of weightings is not trivial. Any criteria with a heavy weighting will influence heavily the emergence of the preferred option.
But neither is scientific it is simply a way of using numbers to force more clarity on what would otherwise be imprecise feelings and to ensure that the eventual outcome is not unduly influenced by one articulate and powerfully expressed view.
Views are invited as to:
1. Whether one of the two weighting schemes should be preferred over
another (or whether there is a third scheme that is better than either).
2. Whether there are any of the 10 criteria which are seen as obvious
candidates for either a very heavy weighting, or for a very light
weighting.
Programme Director
8th March 2004