A LONG-delayed revamp of acute hospital services in Worcestershire has taken a major step forward after an independent report into the scheme was released.

Last year the West Midlands Clinical Senate – a board of medical experts from all elements of the healthcare sector – was asked to examine the project reorganising services at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital and put together and independent report.

Although the report was initially expected to be published earlier this year, it was held back until after the General Election and has finally been released today.

In the report, which can be read in full here, the senate has backed plans to set up a Major Emergency Centre at the Royal, where the most serious accidents and injuries will be treated, as well as an Emergency Centre at the Alex. However it has not supported the specific details of the plan and asked for the programme board to carry out more work on the proposal.

The senate has also asked the board to draw up detailed plans on how more space will be made at the Royal to deal with the expected increased amount of paediatric cases as well as working to help patients and staff better understand where sick children from the Redditch and Bromsgrove area should be taken.

Other elements of the project – which was originally slated to be fully complete by the end of last year – including centralising obstetric, gynaecology and emergency surgery services at the Royal have been supported while the senate has asked the programme board to ensure the plan was fully supported by acute trust clinicians before a public consultation is launched.

The programme’s chairman Jo Newton welcomed the release of the report and said a public consultation into the plans – originally expected to be held last September – would be launched later this year.

“The priority of the Programme Board is about doing what is right for the patients and the people of Worcestershire,” she said.

“Everyone on the Programme Board has the interests of patients at heart and that’s why the independent scrutiny of the model by clinicians in the West Midlands Clinical Senate is so important and helpful.

“The board acknowledges that the interests of the people of Redditch and Bromsgrove whilst central, represent one part of the wider population and we support collaboration between partners across Worcestershire as the only way to ensure that the whole population has safe and sustainable services.”

Although the report has been generally welcomed, Redditch and Bromsgrove Clinical Commissioning Group’s governing board has reserved its support ahead of a meeting tomorrow.

Chairman of pressure group Save the Alex - which has long expressed concerns over the impact of the project of patients in the Redditch area - Neal Stote said he was concerned patients were being "railroaded into accepting a dangerous, poorly planned downgrade of our hospital".

“The senate has not approved the plan for A&E, backing up the concerns raised by the four A&E consultants who resigned earlier this year that it was unsafe and unsustainable," he said. "Yet despite this our NHS intends to put their head in the sand and continue with the process with a view to ripping out those services the senate has approved for centralisation as soon as possible and rumoured to be before Christmas."

Mr Stote claimed there remained a number of unanswered questions around the project and said he believed patients were not being put at the forefront of the plans.

“What we will be left with is what we rejected three years ago, a hospital with a cuts and bruises clinic doing hip and knee operations," he said. "We said no then, we say no now and if they insist on continuing with this process then people from this area will flow over the border in their thousands into Birmingham putting the urgent care system at risk of collapse.

“Four years on and the fact remains we still do not have a sustainable clinical model for a trust which is drowning in debt.

"Instead of ploughing on with this review our NHS should now be to look at all options and working with all providers.

“Otherwise lives will be lost and those who approved this disgraceful decision will be responsible.”