As Western NSW Local Health District continues its preparation of a clinical services plan to guide the future of health in the region, board chairman Scott Griffiths admitted Bathurst had been let down by the planning of the $98 million hospital redevelopment back in 2008.

"There's an acknowledgment by all of us that when the hospital was built that the planning didn't look into the future as it should have," Mr Griffiths told the Western Advocate.

"As a consequence the bed numbers are a little light on and the design is different to what we might do today."

But the problems with the new hospital did not end there.

Stories about a whole raft of issues with the new hospital began as the redevelopment was opened.

The litany of problems included serious communications failures, including an inadequate emergency alarm system; ICU and accident and emergency cubicles that were too small for staff to work in effectively; an operating theatre that was too small to be used; an underground car park that could not be navigated by ambulances; and an overflow of raw sewage that resulted in the evacuation of maternity, ICU and surgical wards, as well as causing damage to the ceilings of lower floors.

Then opposition leader Barry O'Farrell described the whole affair as "genuine incompetence", and few in Bathurst disagreed.

And while the current health hierarchy will want us to think all those issues are in the past, the truth is that the memory remains fresh in the minds of Bathurst residents, along with the nagging suspicion that we remain the poor cousin in terms of health services when compared with Orange and Dubbo,

All this means there is an awful lot riding on the development of a clinical services plan, both in terms of the new medical services and medical spaces we want to see and also in terms of rebuilding the confidence of the people of Bathurst.

We've been burnt before and we're naturally wary about bureaucrats bearing gifts.

But Western NSW LHD is making a real point of communicating with the public and we're hearing all the right noises at this stage.

Let's hope they get it right this time.