Break up would not hit services

RESIDENTS elsewhere in Worcestershire have nothing to fear should another Trust be brought in to run the Alexandra Hospital.

Dr Jonathan Wells, chair and clinical lead of Redditch and Bromsgrove Commissioning Group, said potentially they were looking at a ‘win win situation’ for the whole county if it was decided to bring in another provider on the Woodrow Drive site.

Redditch and Bromsgrove CCG is set to take over responsibility for the Joint Services Review along with clinical commissioning groups in South Worcestershire, Wyre Forest and the NHS Commissioning Board in the next few weeks.

Although it has been accepted A&E, maternity and paediatrics should be centralised at the Worcestershire Royal, Worcestershire’s Clinical Senate has also backed looking in more detail at what another provider could deliver at the Alex.

Concerns have been raised without patients from Redditch and Bromsgrove some services and even WAHT itself could become unsustainable.

But Dr Wells said financial analysis showed WAHT would be able to deliver a small surplus by 2015/16 with or without the Alex and all three CCGs were committed to fully developing option two.

“I want to reassure people in Worcester and Kidderminster whatever happens at the end of this process Worcestershire Royal will be a specialised hospital, it will have 24 hour A&E, it will have 24 hour paediatrics, it will have consultant led obstetrics and gynaecology and be one of the largest non teaching hospitals in the UK so whatever happens at the Alex, Worcester patients are going to have a fantastic specialist hospital,” he said.

“For Kidderminster, because Worcester is constrained in its site and is a PFI, they will want to move some elective services across to Kidderminster and build up Kidderminster and invest in it, so Kiderminster will end up doing more elective services so the people of Kidderminster can be reassured their hospital isn’t under threat.”

At a board meeting of WAHT on Wednesday Mark Wake, the Trust’s chief medical officer, revealed their analysis had showed the loss of Redditch and Bromsgrove patients could put certain cancer and urology services at risk while there could be other ‘unintended consequences’.

But Dr Wells said it was too premature to draw any conclusions as option two had not been fully worked up.

“The area team is responsible for commissioning county services and specialist services and its job is to look across, not just Worcestershire, but the whole of the West Midlands and ensuring specialised services and cancer services are run efficiently and effectively across the whole area and that will be looked at as part of the next stage of the process.”

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