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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scarborough General Hospital

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) Alpha Quadrant talk 21:32, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scarborough General Hospital

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Scarborough General Hospital (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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fails WP:ORG. hospitals are not inherently notable. coverage seems to only show people reported as being turning up to this hospital. incidentially, it appears from coverage that there are 2 hospitals of identical name in USA and Canada. [1]. LibStar (talk) 01:46, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:50, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Hospitals may not be "inherently notable", but it would be very unusual for any NHS general hospital not to attract coverage in reliable sources - they are large institutions with a significant effect on their communities. Yes, lots of the Google News hits are about people being born in, dying in or being taken to the hospital, but there are some among them with coverage of the hospital itself. The first few that I found were this, this and this dubious honour. The squeamish may wish to avoid following this link about an operation performed at the hospital. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:33, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Coverage does not equal notability. Yes, all hospitals will be mentioned in the news from time to time when sick or injured people are taken there. Yes, there will be news items about budget questions from time to time. Yes, they will all have botched operations and other mishaps that get in the news from time to time. In no way is this notable per se. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 04:07, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. On the contrary, I would say that the history of the main NHS general hospital in a district is of inherent notability in the context of history and life in a major town and the region around it -- probably of significantly more notability than most tourist attractions and grand houses that we (quite properly) include without even thinking twice.
Consider, for example, how much blue and how little red there is in List of hospitals in England. The article has clear scope for expansion. (Compare for example Royal Surrey County Hospital for another typical NHS district general hospital). How big is this hospital? When was it built? What has been its history? What administrative changes has it been through? What external assessments has it achieved? How many patients does it treat? All of this is material we should quite properly expect to be able to source, and which we should aspire to do so as being of considerable relevance if we want our articles to comprehensively treat the town and the area around it. Jheald (talk) 15:34, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
please provide sources to demonstrate WP:ORG is met. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a reason for keeping. LibStar (talk) 02:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"There's sources available aplenty" for the other hospital with a similar name, the one in Toronto. Add "Yorkshire" to the news search [4], and you'll find a surprisingly brief list of news items consisting of "coverage" that is only a trivial mention ("and the victim was taken to ____ hospital") and WP:ROUTINE items that get stuck in the newspaper for all WP:MILL hospitals. First three items: (1) man's penis cut off, taken to hospital; (2) person falls off cliff, taken to hospital; (3) soap opera actor beaten up, taken to hospital. Significant coverage accruing to hospital? None. Similarly, if you add "Yorkshire" to the Google books search [5], you find incidental mentions and the odd directory listing. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 07:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good catch, in fact a little research tells me that the hospital is actually called "Scarborough District General Hospital" per this [6], however there are next to no references to that which I assume means that absolutely noone actually calls it that. A search for Scarborough Hospital brings a few sources [7] which led to some stories about criticism of the hospital, a financial crisis [8], criminal disorder in their A&E department [9], a new maternity ward [10] and "celebrity" chefs doing a tv turn over the hospital's catering [11]. Admittedly it's slim pickings (I guess that's what happens for a hospital with a catchment area of only about 250,000) but there is coverage. ETA: There appears to be at least one book about the hospital [12] unfortunately not scanned --Deadly∀ssassin 08:05, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some stories from the BBC, not just run-of-the-mill I think: Scarborough and York hospital trusts in merger talks (28.10.2010), 'Concern' over Scarborough and Bridlington hospitals (7.10.2010), Hospital trust gets worst rating (18.10.2007). Selina Scott also gave an unflattering thumbnail sketch in the Daily Mail, of the hospital where she was born, and where her father died [13] (13.4.2009): "... a hospital with a very poor reputation. It has the lowest ratio of doctors to patients of any hospital in the country. Recent cuts imposed by the NHS trust had driven the hospital's consultants and nurses out on to the streets, protesting at threatened job losses, so that now Scarborough was one of the worst performing hospitals in the country... Its entrance is now gum-splattered and tatty; a plaque on the wall is a reminder of a royal opening from long ago... No orderly came [over a whole week] with a bucket and mop to either clean the corridor [on the first floor] or the service lift, which was also covered in filth... It seemed the spirit of the place had also been given the last rites." (Though she acknowledges that the stroke unit "was, in contrast, clean, bright and well-run, a ward which had been modernised"). There have also been other national reports of other bad experiences [14][15] So, as one would expect for an institution of this local significance, there has been at least some coverage, even if it doesn't seem to have been very flattering. Jheald (talk) 09:22, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The arguments so far given to keep this listing do not hold water:
  • There is or must exist significant coverage - Yet none is provided, and I didn't find any.
  • DeadlyAssassin and Jheald's new research (see above) have provided some new sources that, while still a bit thin for me, do at least allow for notability to be debated, in one area: reports of poor quality of care and (presumably related) financial difficulties. Do people think that these are instances of a broader trend among at least a significant percentage of English hospitals, or is this more a case of a particular hospital being a notably bad egg, at least on the evidence of the various citations? If the former, then what we're left with is an especially run-of-the-mill subject that does not warrant a WP entry. If the latter, and if it is felt that it crosses the threshhold of notability, then surely this topic merits the addition of a dedicated section within the entry, yes? --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 18:49, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • NHS hospitals are inherently notable - This is directly contradicted by WP:ORGIN--> "No Inherited Notability". I would certainly grant that the subject is important. but importance is different than notability.
  • Other NHS hospitals are notable - Per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, "that other similar articles exist is an argument to avoid in deletion discussions". --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 07:43, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you're going to quote WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS please also quote the very next line of the nutshell: "When used properly, a logical rationalization of "Other Stuff Exists" may be used in a perfectly valid manner in discussions of what articles to create, delete, or retain." -- i.e. while it's not enough just to point to other stuff that exists, it is appropriate to look at other stuff that exists, discuss why that other stuff exists, and argue that that rationale also exists here. That is exactly the kind of argument I was making above.
I'm glad that you now accept that notable coverage exists. But it's not really actually the stories in that coverage that are what make the hospital notable. What really makes the hospital notable is that it is the principal local hospital for 200,000 people, with the next nearest comparable hospital over 40 miles away ([16], p.2). Most of those 200,000 people will have been born in the hospital; roughly two-thirds can expect to die there; for all of them that makes it a significant landmark in their living environment. That makes it exactly the kind of case that WP:INHERENT applies to, for the reasons that essay explains: because it has real-world significance, that means that, for example, a proposal that its management be taken over becomes a story that the BBC will cover -- they judge the story as significant and newsworthy because they see the hospital as significant and notable to a sufficient part of their audience, exactly the criterion we are being called on to assess here. The situation is similar to WP:Notability (high schools), which makes the point that such organisations will therefore almost inevitably tend to pass WP:ORGIN, because of that effect.
Indeed, I am quite surprised that we don't yet have an NHS wikiproject or taskforce, with at least part of its agenda to turn the list of district general hospitals blue, with a standard checklist suggesting the sort of facts most such articles should be able to report -- for example, as I cited above, an article like Royal Surrey County Hospital gives a good example of what should be achievable for most hospitals. In this case the more immediate problem is probably that the hospital official website (considered a WP:RS for purely factual material for the purpose of WP:V if not WP:N) doesn't appear to very easily produce the information. But the local PCT has just launched a strategic review [17] and published some wider strategic planning material [18] (nb p.44 et seq), and there's also quite a stack of the hospital's old newsletters etc online; and who knows what other NHS documents can be found once one's worked out where to look; so with luck it should be possible to dig out at least some of the desired facts, if not a comprehensive pen profile.
Ultimately we should be trying to provide readers with whatever reliable material may be useful to them. If you find that you are consistently opposing articles on subjects you would accept are important, I would suggest it's time to renew your acquaintance with WP:IAR. That must come before any bureaucracy. Jheald (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Repeat recommendation to delete. In case I was unclear, such coverage as exists falls well short of notability, in my view. If a hundred million people shuffle on and another hundred million shuffle off this mortal coil in a year, is that fact notable? Sure. Is every individual birth and death notable? No. Is the fact that a few thousand did so at this or that random hospital notable? No, not on that fact alone. If you had challenged me to invent an especially unnotable hospital so as to challenge the notion that every hospital is inherently notable, I could hardly have done a better job. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 02:35, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's be clear. Of course the fact that the hospital treats x thousand patients is not globally unusual or anything surprising to be noted. But my point was rather different: it is the fact that it underlines the importance of the hospital to the 200,000 people whom it serves. To those people the hospital is not "run-of-the-mill", it is their single unique local general hospital, the only one within 40 miles. That's what makes it worth trying to write an article about: the subject is important to a significant number of our readership. (The fact that proposed management changes become regional news stories underlines this). Their interests should not be dismissed (WP:ITSLOCAL). A good concise presentation of the facts about this hospital is something that would be of value, and a worthwhile addition to the encyclopedia. Jheald (talk) 08:15, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion noted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Health Service Jheald (talk) 09:04, 27 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]
Note: This discussion noted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England Jheald (talk) 09:15, 27 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]
Note: This discussion noted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine Jheald (talk) 09:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]
Note: This discussion noted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Yorkshire Jheald (talk) 09:22, 27 September 2011 (UTC) [reply]
  • Keep. There are sufficient reports and references supplied to meet the WP:GNG, there are also the various reports produced on the hospital by the Care Quality Commission that are independent of subject and give in depth coverage, such as [19]. Keith D (talk) 10:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm a bit surprised to see this here as hospitals (certainly regional ones like this) are significant institutions. The arguments about whether something is exceptional or unusual are not grounded in policy. The only reference (I think) to that sort of terminology is in WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:EVENT, but neither of those really applies to something like a hospital which isn't an "event" and where the coverage is persistent. The aims of those policies are to stop articles being created on an event or person on the basis of a flurry of news reports. It is also very subjective - there are lots of things which aren't unique, e.g. football players, but we don't dismiss coverage of them on the basis of it being 'routine' coverage. Polequant (talk) 11:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The fact that their is a number of hospitals with this name means that we need to distinguish between them. Looks like the article needs imprvement not deletion.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:50, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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