A COUNTY health expert says the best solution for the future of Worcestershire’s urgent care hospitals will be whatever best protects services for patients.

Retired county hospital physician and former Wyre Forest MP, Dr Richard Taylor, said there are tough decisions to be made about the future of the county’s acute hospitals and is concerned that local access to specialist services could be lost if the wrong choices are made.

NHS services in Worcestershire are being revamped to help Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust – which runs Worcestershire Royal, Redditch’s Alexandra and Kidderminster hospitals – save £50 million over the next three years.

The conclusions of a joint services review (JSR) into the shake-up have left just two options on the table.

One of these is to downgrade the Alexandra, with more serious emergency, women’s and children’s services to be handled by an enhanced operation at Worcestershire Royal.

The other is for another provider – likely a Birmingham-based hospital trust – to take over delivery of services in Redditch.

Dr Taylor said there are considerable drawbacks to either option.

“The option of putting more services in Worcester is hugely unpopular with Redditch people because they will face huge difficulties in having to get to Worcester for emergencies,” he said.

But Dr Taylor said he feared that teaming Redditch up with a Birmingham-based provider could have serious knock-on effects for patients across the whole county.

“There is a big question whether, if you lose Redditch, what is left remains viable,” he said.

“Financially, the answer is probably yes but I worry about some of the specialist services, for example head and neck cancer treatment.

“You need a certain population base to run those. If you lose Redditch then you lose something like 170,000 patients, leaving about 300,000. Is that viable?

“Whatever happens has got to leave what we have already got and hopefully even improve it.”

Further work on the currently less-developed option of an alternative provider for Redditch will take place over the coming months, ahead of an expected public consultation which would take place later this year.

Worcestershire Acute Trust has said it is fully committed to exploring that option but wants to keep providing for the whole of the county and that it has no desire to let the Alex go.