WE are all very worried by the models for change in the Acute Hospitals Trust’s paper issued during the current engagement process of the Joint Services Review prior to formal consultation.

Independent Community and Health Concern (ICHC) have not yet suggested active measures to oppose any possible threats to the current services at Kidderminster Hospital.

We are suggesting that a true joint review should include all the health bodies in the county and an investigation into the useage of the whole county’s health budget of £900 million.

This should be carried out independently and openly before proposals for reconfiguration or closure of core services are considered.

If the isolated review of the acute trust’s services continues unchanged, and options are put forward that are not in the best interest of the whole county, that will be the time for us to act.

In the meantime ICHC is alerting the Independent Reconfiguration Panel (IRP) to the situation in the county. The IRP was instituted by the last government in 2003 as a response to the ‘Kidderminster Effect’.

All who remember the previous strategic review of hospital services will recall that, when the decision was announced by Alan Milburn, Health Minister, at Christmas in 1998, we would have given anything for such a body to review that decision impartially and independently.

ICHC is also trying to discover where the Wyre Forest GPs stand on the issue as, if it does come to a fight to retain any of our hard-won hospital services which are of use to the whole county, we must know if they will be our allies.

RICHARD TAYLOR President, Independent Community and Health Concern