AN MP fears medical bosses planning to scrap one of Dorset’s accident and emergency departments are “obsessed with following fads” and “accountable to nobody”.

Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group has spent £2.75million on a review which will mean one of Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Poole Hospital will home the county’s main emergency unit while the other focuses on planned care.

And now Chris Chope, MP for Christchurch, has hit out at the plans, branding the potential transfer of 450 beds and multiple services from one hospital site to the other as “bizarre”.

He told the Daily Echo that giving just one of the trusts an emergency department is akin to “putting all your eggs in one basket”, that there is “no evidence it will improve patient care” and “would not be value for money”.

“We have two good hospitals at the moment in Poole and Bournemouth – and I just can’t see the case for downgrading one to basically the same status of Christchurch Hospital [which focuses on planned treatments],” he said.

“They [the CCG] talk about going out to public consultation, but I think people should be asked whether they believe there should be just one A&E in our area. The question should not be which of Poole Hospital and Royal Bournemouth Hospital should be designated as the major emergency hospital, it should be ‘why should we have to make that choice in the first place?’”

A proposed merger between the hospitals was blocked in 2013 following intervention by the Competition Commission after the body deemed patient care would be damaged as a result of reduced choice. Mr Chope said those concerns still apply and feels the CCG is ignoring them, adding: "They are obsessed with following the fad that larger hospitals lead to better care.”

A CCG spokesman said more than 300 NHS clinicians had worked with other organisations and the public to develop the proposals.

He added that the Major Planned Care Hospital with an Urgent Care Centre would become a centre of excellence in the east of the county, treating those patients who have scheduled operations.  

"The Urgent Care Centre at the hospital would be an important part of Dorset’s A&E network, seeing and treating around 80 per cent of the patients who currently use the A&E, relieving pressure on A&E teams and allowing A&E departments to concentrate on the more serious cases.

"It would be networked with the A&Es in Dorset to allow staff to share expertise and hours of cover. 

"It would be able to offer a consistent level of care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, led by GPs to give advice and treatment for a range of illnesses and conditions. 

"The new proposals are as recommended in the major national Keogh report into urgent and emergency care services," the spokesman said.

"There is very clear evidence that more lives are saved when people are treated at specialist centres with specialist staff available twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

"Dorset does not currently have such a centre so developing a major emergency hospital with A&E services will see local people having higher quality services than those that are currently available."

Recently the CCG revealed it was postponing the start of the consultation until early 2016.