Letter: Battle for Bart's

Sir: Jeremy Laurance reports that the consultant staff of the Royal Hospitals NHS Trust voted, in a ballot before Christmas, in favour of merging the trust's five hospitals at a single site, at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

That ballot was organised by the council of which I am chairman. It produced a substantial majority in favour of the single-site option, but only if it is of sufficient scale to support the current and predicted secondary and tertiary clinical workload. The definition of scale is where the debate hinges; it is not simply about the number of sites.

Dr JOHN P MONSON

Chairman, Joint Medical Council, Royal Hospitals Trust

St Bartholomew's Hospital

London EC1