My view is that Dover requires a medium size hospital with all the facilities that Buckland once boasted. There are certain very expensive facilities at the main hospitals which cannot be replicated in the smaller ones, together with the top consultants. All the day to day stuff should be done at the local hospitals to save the endless travel and disruption caused by having to use the main hospitals.
What I feel is not factored in when concentrating all the facilities at the main hospitals is the cost to individuals and the general economy of all this travelling and time off work. I suspect that the hospital trusts only consider costs in the narrow sense of those which relate to the health service itself. As a National Health Service, the opportunity is there to view overall costs to the economy as a whole.
For example, I drove Chris to the William Harvey a few days ago for a routine appointment with a consultant. She saw him for literally a couple of minutes, just a "how are you feeling?" job. Then all the way back home again. Pointless, could have been done on the phone or the consultant could hold clinics at the smaller hospitals on a rotating basis.
For our historians, saw this on Ebay the other day: