PUBLIC consultation on the future of acute hospital services in Worcestershire has begun with Vale residents being urged to have their say.
Worcestershire’s three clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have launched a consultation on the plans about how services would work.
Under the proposals, all three main hospitals – the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Kidderminster Hospital and Treatment Centre and the Worcestershire Royal Hospital in Worcester – will remain open but will work differently in future.
The main difference would be the separation of planned and emergency care and the centralisation of where children stay in hospital and where women have their babies in hospital.
Under the plans, most planned operations would take place at the Alexandra and Kidderminster Hospitals which would allow the Worcestershire Royal Hospital to concentrate on caring for the sickest patients and those who need emergency surgery.
By separating planned and emergency care, the NHS believes it can reduce waiting times and the number of cancelled operations.
All hospital births would move from the Alex to the Worcestershire Royal Hospital, as will inpatient children’s services although outpatient and urgent services for children with minor and moderate illnesses will remain at the Alexandra Hospital.
All emergency surgery will move from the Alex to Worcestershire Royal.
Health chiefs say, irrespective of the changes, 95 per cent of people would continue to receive their care in the same hospital as they do now and 80 per cent of children who currently receive treatment at the Alex would continue to do so.
Both Accident and Emergency Departments would remain open 24-hours a day but A&E at the Alex would be for adults (over 16 years old) only.
A number of drop-in events have been planned including:
Tuesday, January 17 at the Alexandra Hospital (main hospital corridor) from 10am to 4pm
Thursday, January 19 at Worcestershire Royal Hospital (main entrance foyer) 10am-4pm
Thursday, January 26 in the Committee Room, Pershore Civic Centre, Queen Elizabeth Drive from 2pm
Saturday, February 11 in the Oasis room, the Hive, the Butts, Worcester, 10am-1pm
All ll of the drop-in events can be found at http://www.worcsfuture hospitals.co.uk
The consultation will run until midnight on Thursday, March 30, 2017.
The review into local hospital services was started in January 2012 when clinicians across Worcestershire voiced concerns about the safety of services due to shortages of staff.
The Future of Acute Hospital Services in Worcestershire (FoAHSW) programme was then launched in September 2013.
Authors of the proposals say some hospital services across the county are too small to continue on more than one site and they believe patient care can be improved by bringing specialists together in larger teams.
They say having larger teams will enable individual clinicians to treat more patients which will help maintain and improve skills and give a better service.
