Local MP Steve Brine has warned that Winchester's health economy problems have not gone away, following news that local commissioners have said plans for a new acute hospital to the north of the city are not financially viable.
The West Hampshire and North Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Groups, who pay hospital trusts including Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust which runs Winchester and Basingstoke hospitals, have written to key stakeholders to say that the primary reason they could not support the proposal for the 'critical treatment centre' was "the predicted costs of services supplied in this way significantly exceed the funds available to commissioners."
This means that despite a public exhibition earlier this year trailing HHFT plans for the Dummer site, the planned public consultation will now not go ahead as planned. Mr Brine met with Chief Executive Mary Edwards on Wednesday 23rd September for crunch talks, and also took a look at the radiology department, where he re-opened the scanners in June 2013.
Steve Brine said: "A whole system approach that is able to fully combine hospital with social care must be right because it's increasingly clear across the NHS that the success of one is heavily reliant on the other.
"I don't think grandstanding on this issue is going to help anyone. We must all work together with commissioners and providers, as well as councils, to move swiftly to a sustainable settlement for the local health economy because Winchester's problems haven't gone away and patient safety has to remain our priority."
The Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP, who is PPS to Secretary of State for Health Jeremy Hunt, is now speaking with Ministers at the Department of Health to see how their help and expertise may be used for the benefit of this process.
Mary Edwards, Chief Executive of HHFT, expressed her disappointment that the consultation was not yet going ahead. She added: "We fully appreciate the challenging financial context that the NHS faces, we are working with our commissioners and we will continue to pursue solutions that are affordable and deliver high quality patient care."
Pictured; Steve chats to radiology staff at the scanner re-opening in June 2013
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