HEALTH chiefs have warned of ‘tough choices ahead’ as they map out the future of health care across Redditch and Bromsgrove.
Known as the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), the five year programme – which includes all of Worcestershire and Herefordshire – firmly puts the emphasis on individuals, families and communities taking responsibility for their own health and making illness prevention ‘everyone’s business’.
The emphasis will be on primary care delivered through doctors’ practices and community services to patients in their own home of locally thereby reducing the need for admission to hospital.
It also sets the ambitious target of care services across the counties being rated as ‘Good’ and heading for ‘Outstanding’ on the Care Quality Commission rating scale – Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust (WAHT) is currently rated as ‘Inadquate’ although the Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust (WHCT), which covers primary care and local mental health services is currently rated as ‘Good’.
Sarah Dugan, chief executive of WHCT and accountable officer for Herefordshire and Worcestershire STP said: “We have rising demands on our services and we also know there are areas where we need to improve.
“We have begun thinking about how we can make those improvements and maintain safe and effective delivery of services with the resources we will have.
We cannot continue as we are and we will have to make some tough choices about what we should invest more in, what needs changing, and what we should stop providing all together.
“We have to be clear that the information developed so far is not set in stone and remains in draft form at this stage. We are developing a plan to get out and start a conversation with the public on these emerging concepts to provide opportunities, wherever possible, to help shape these as we move forward.”
However Neal Stote of Save the Alex said the whole idea of Redditch being lumped in with Herefordshire was ‘totally wrongheaded’.
“Politicallyy through the West Midlands Combined Authority we are linked to Birmingham and yet here we are on health being expected to link with Hereford.
“It’s a stretch to get to Worcester, let alone Hereford when all our major routes lead north.
“No mention of finance is made in the all of this – it’s papering over the cracks – where is the money for this ‘transformation of services’ going to come from?”
