"NEW Hospital Hope. It is up to you," proclaimed the front page headline of the Gazette 25 years ago this week.

"Whether a new community hospital for Malvern is built on health authority land in the Link will largely depend on how people use the existing Lansdowne Crescent hospital, which re-opened this week as a GP managed unit.

"Worcester Health Authority manager Mr Jim Waits told the Malvern Gazette this week that usage of Malvern General Hospital now depended on the GPs, who would largely choose how to use it. 'They can make or break it,' he said.

"Usage will be a prime factor in assessing demand for a new hospital on the site off Osborne Road, where the mental handicap unit has just opened, and where a unit for the elderly mentally ill is planned next year.

" 'We are committed to developing community hospital; services in Malvern and, ideally, we would have them all on the same site,' he said.

"How Malvern General was used as a community hospital would allow the authority to assess the demand. But there would need to be further consultation on whether Malvern wanted a new hospital, or had strong loyalty to the existing one which was given to the town by Dyson Perrins in the early 1900s, he said.

"The health authority was standing by its pledge that up to 300 more patients from Malvern could be treated in the town under reorganisation, but say it will depend on local doctors' support.

"And he repeated the assurance that waiting times for operations would not suffer."