HEALTH commissioners are challenging plans to close community hospital beds as part of a health service transformation to find £40 million of savings.

At least 10 per cent of the county’s 200 community beds have been earmarked to go as Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust looks to make savings of about £8 million a year until 2017/18.

The trust says that about 20 beds are deemed surplus to requirements and that more could go the same way as it shifts to a greater focus on delivering care at home.

However, bosses at the new South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – which is taking over the purse strings for the area’s health services and will be responsible for handing over cash to the health and care trust – say there is “no enthusiasm” for closing beds.

Chief operating officer Simon Trickett said: “Cutting beds is not in our plans. We will be looking to work with the trust to find other ways of being more efficient.”

He added: “We are absolutely committed to community hospitals. We don’t at the moment see any need for reductions in beds. There is no desire or enthusiasm among our local GPs for cutting local beds.”

The issue was flagged up as a concern by GPs on the CCG board. Carl Ellson, chief clinical officer and a GP with 20 years’ experience, said: “We have absolutely no plans to close any community beds.”

Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust’s transformation plan is looking for efficiency savings in areas such as mental health, community care and children’s services.

About 300 of 4,500 jobs with the trust are also being cut, although bosses stress they do not envisage having to make significant redundancies, while many staff will be required to re-train.

The trust says that while the need to find savings is a factor, the new model will produce a better service for patients.

Chief executive Sarah Dugan said: “Our high-level vision is to provide safe, high quality care close to or at home, and supporting people to live well, be independent and recover quickly. Our intention is to increase the range of activities which are provided in community hospitals to support our strategy of care closer to home.

“Discussions around optimum bed numbers for the future are still on-going with commissioners and no decisions have been formally agreed to date.”