Maternity issue hots up

Primary care trusts driving changes in services will on Monday unveil a document setting out options for the future.

The report will go before a joint board meeting of the East Sussex Downs and Weald and Hastings and Rother PCTs next Friday which will be recommended to begin a consultation process.

The report itself does not recommend a course of action, but it does confront the possibility of centralising acute maternity services on either the DGH or Conquest Hospitals.

After a year of concerns over the future of services in general at the Conquest and DGH, maternity remains the area of controversy.

The PCT report leaves the A&E departments at the two hospitals '“ at one time rumoured to be facing a merger '“ out of the agenda for major change.

Assuming the joint boards accept the proposal to consult, the process will begin at the end of this month.

A document will be available to the public, providing the opportunity for feedback on the options.

During a 15-week consultation period, public meetings will be held and PCT managers will speak at meetings of various groups.

At the end of the consultation period, the results will be analysed by the Trusts and presented to the boards for decision-making in September or October.

Changes are likely to be put into effect in the early part of next year.

At a press briefing this week, Nick Yeo, chief executive of the two PCTs, insisted that the financial situation within the NHS in East Sussex was not the main consideration in looking for changes.

The East Sussex NHS Hospitals Trust '“ which runs the DGH and Conquest '“ is likely to be 3-4m in the red this year, with the PCTs, which buy hospital services, confronting a 23m deficit.

But most of the hospitals' debt has been carried forward, said Mr Yeo, as has half that of the PCTs. This was a far less gloomy picture than in many other Trusts in the south.

It was envisaged that a centralising of obstetrics at one hospital '“ if that is the route ultimately decided upon '“ would save around 1m.