Although there were misgivings about the proposed move from Yorkhill to the Southern General Hospital (SGH), the staff of the Queen Mother's Hospital and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, together with the community maternity, child health and child and adolescent psychiatric services, accepted former Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm's proposals and the recommendations of the committee chaired by Professor Andrew Calder. The move was a chance to create, as promised, a new, world-class national facility that would enhance the excellence of the services provided for families requiring help, whether they are diagnostic, therapeutic or curative, in a safe, accessible and pleasant environment.

These columns have recently instanced occasions when NHS clinical staff feel that they have not been properly consulted and they have been constrained in making their frustrations public. We have been made aware of some of the anxieties produced by this lack of communication with clinical staff. We take this opportunity to ask that they are fully involved in planning, will be listened to and that the whole process is open to public scrutiny before more scarce health service money is used to create facilities of a lower quality than those currently enjoyed at Yorkhill.

Can we be assured that there will be an adequate number of beds to meet peak demands with some reserve to meet the needs of population growth, ward closures owing to infection or necessary ward and theatre cleaning and maintenance?

Will the plans to refurbish the maternity hospital at the SGH meet 21st-century standards? What is the life span of the refurbished building? If and when this building is to be replaced, where will the mothers and infants be cared for during the rebuilding and what will be the effect on services in the proposed adjoining children's hospital? Would it not be better to complete the building of a modern, integrated maternal and child hospital and thereafter transfer all services with less disruption than that which will result during the rumoured three-year minimum gap between the establishment of the proposed maternity services and the building of a new children's hospital?

There are other concerns, such as what will happen to the teaching, research, laboratory, investigative and other services dedicated to promoting health for tomorrow's children. Will they be subsumed into adult-orientated facilities to their detriment?

The recent closure of Yorkhill's research and development department by the NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board does not give rise to any confidence among staff who currently achieve high research assessment ratings. Will interdisciplinary facilities such as the Fraser of Allander Neurosciences Unit, which have allowed Yorkhill to keep the quality of clinical care and research at a high international level, be lost? Do the universities whose staff work at Yorkhill have funding to replicate, if not improve, current facilities on the SGH site? Most obstetric and paediatric research is clinically based, as is teaching, and facilities should be integral to the new hospital.

Is the accommodation which houses voluntary services, such as Ronald McDonald House, Clic-Sargent, the Yorkhill Foundation, Bereavement, Medicinema and other family services going to be transferred and, if so, where, when and to what specifications? If PFI is used, how does this limit or inhibit the substantial funds that are given by voluntary bodies and charities?

Will management please give answers to these and other basic questions which concern the public and Yorkhill staff and try to keep us all informed before commitments are made? - Professor F Cockburn, Dr K Goel, Dr R Logan, Professor J Stephenson, Professor D Young.