ABOUT 400 people around Worcestershire have attended public discussion events for the NHS’s joint services review.

Seven public events have taken place, including two in Kidderminster, to discuss models put forward by clinicians on the future of the county’s acute hospital care.

Two of the options threaten Kidderminster Hospital with further downgrading or closure. The town’s events took place in the town hall and saw about 120 people attend over the two dates.

The models will be shortlisted in August against criteria also discussed at the public events and a full, three-month public consultation will take place starting in November.

Dr Anthony Kelly, GP and chairman of Worcestershire Clinical Senate, said: “We would like to thank the hundreds of people who took time out from their busy lives to take part in these valuable and stimulating discussion events.

“They have given us lots of useful and detailed personal viewpoints at an early stage of the review, and all these will be taken into account.

“I think the discussions into the detail of the clinical models have surprised a lot of people too, in that even if we had an unlimited budget, we face the countrywide problem that we cannot recruit sufficient specialist clinicians to run hospital services sustainably into the future.

“At this stage no financial modeling has been done, we have concentrated on the clinical factors first.”

A report on the findings from the first stage of public engagement will be published. There will be similar events in the near future as part of a second engagement phase on the shortlisted models.