MPs' dismay as figures show threatened Worcestershire community hospital beds are 90% full

As the Worcester News first revealed in November, beds at five mini-hospitals could be slashed 44 per cent as part of a huge overhaul.

But figures show how they are taken up 90.9 per cent of the time in Tenbury, 95.1 per cent at Pershore and 93.4 per cent in Malvern - three of the sites facing cuts.

The data comes after West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin challenged health chiefs to publish occupancy rates before the suggestion goes any further.

The figures were for the seven months between April and October last year, and do not even take account of the winter.

At their peak all three sites hit 97 or 98 per cent occupancy, with Mrs Baldwin saying the figures "speak for themselves".

"With the acute trust under such serious pressure for beds at the moment, now cannot be the time to be talking about reducing capacity at our community hospitals," she said.

"The figures speak for themselves - it is clear there is strong demand for beds at our precious community hospitals.

We should be using community hospitals more, not less - I hope the people leading the draft plan will take a long look at these numbers and rethink their strategy."

Health bosses insist the figure of a 44 per cent reduction includes social care beds, and say the proposal is based on 'high level modelling' as part of their Sustainability and Transformation Plan.

They also insist any changes would be based on more investment on treating people in their own homes, in a bid to reduce the number of people visiting each site.

A spokesman for Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust said: "At this stage, our area's draft Sustainability and Transformation Plan sets out some fairly high level thoughts for how health and care services could look over the next four to five years, so we can better meet the health needs of our communities.

"A key part of the thinking is improving the care we provide in people’s own homes and if we get this right it could, over time, lead to fewer people needing to be admitted to a community hospital bed.

"If fewer people need a bed because they are getting more effective nursing or therapy care at home, then you might consider changes to bed capacity, but again this would be predicated on strengthening the support provided at home and demand going down.

"Clearly current occupancy figures won’t reflect this long-term approach."

The spokesman said community hospitals could adopt more services from larger sites, like blood transfusions.

There are currently 324 beds at the small sites in Malvern, Pershore, Tenbury, Evesham and Bromsgrove, which are designed to keep people away from A&E at Worcestershire royal and the Alex.