Last Friday,  the Independent Review Panel  (IRP) report was issued on the proposals to reshape and strengthen healthcare in our hospitals and community locally.  Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had asked the panel to look into the referral from the Joint Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee on the Right Care Time Place proposals and advise on next steps.

The outcome was a request for more information in some areas and Jeremy Hunt has given our commissioners and regulators three months to do further work in three areas and report back. The areas are: out of hospital (community) care, hospital capacity and the availability of capital financing.

Importantly, the IRP report recognised the clinical case for concentrating emergency care in one location and planned care on the other.   It also recognises that maintaining the status quo is not an option. The report says:

“The Panel agrees with the JHSC (Joint Health and Scrutiny Committee) that maintaining the status quo is not an option. Further, through a period of extensive engagement, consultation and external scrutiny, an alternative model to that proposed for acute hospital services has not emerged. In these circumstances it is only reasonable to continue to pursue the proposals in more detail in the interests of local health services.”

The IRP also shares our view about the  need for change to enable us to recruit and retain colleagues across a two-site Trust. The report says: “In the meantime, there are real concerns about the safety and sustainability of some current hospital services. In the meantime, foresight about the sustainability of services has been replaced by real concern and a sense of urgency as it has becomes increasingly difficult to recruit and retain key medical staff stretched across two sites. "

The full report is attached below.