THE decision to permanently close A&E, maternity and paediatrics services at Poole Hospital is not a cost cutting exercise, insist health chiefs.

Bosses say integrating teams to separate planned and emergency care will instead ensure a £147m investment into services and will save and not risk lives because more senior clinicians with specialisms will be on site for more of the time including evenings and weekends.

Commissioners say doing nothing would be ‘negligent’ due to a workforce crisis and growing demand.

RBH will become the county’s major emergency hub for the east with Poole Hospital being transformed into a major planned site with a 24/7 urgent care centre GP led with consultant input.

This unit will deal with cuts, minor burns and minor fractures and is expected to see more than 50 per cent of patients who currently attend A&E.

Dorset County Hospital will continue to provide both emergency and planned care. Residents will access all three sites.

Poole Hospital is set to receive around £62m investment to improve its theatres and areas for day cases, recovery areas and the creation of the urgent care centre. RBH will receive around £85m funding to create a state-of-the-art maternity unit for east Dorset, a children’s unit, women’s unit and an enlarged A&E with more bed capacity.

RBH boss Tony Spotswood branded it a 'generational decision' that will strengthen services.

The chief executive said a new road will link with the Wessex Way to improve access and there are also plans to expand car parking.

Mr Spotswood said: “I think it’s a generational decision because it brings with it close to £150m of investment for services in east Dorset so over the next four to five years we will see a transformation in the way care is provided. We will see a significant strengthening of our services particularly those services available to patients outside of normal hours leading to better outcomes and a redemption in avoidable mortality.

“Dorset has done incredibly well to secure this amount of investment at a time of such austerity across public services.”

It is predicted the relocation of services between the two hospitals will take three to four years though some changes will happen sooner.

Mr Spotswood added: “There may be some early changes where we consolidate some services onto fewer sites where it is evident that is necessary in order to provide particular strong and robust out of hours services but the main changes will come in the years ahead.”

Speaking about the proposed state-of-the-art maternity services, he said: “The facilities in Dorset really do need upgrading to bring them into the 21st century.”

Dorset CCG chief officer Tim Goodson added: “This is the largest investment into the NHS in Dorset for at least 20 years. We see it as securing a fantastic future for all three sites. We think it will get better outcomes and save lives, particularly around the major emergency site.”

'Residents' concerns will not go away'

HEALTH bosses must include local people in the design of Dorset’s future NHS services, a health watchdog has warned.

Martyn Webster, manager of Healthwatch Dorset said the decisions mark a beginning, not an end and that residents’ concerns will not go away.

He said: “There will be winners and losers after today’s decisions. For the winners, services will improve and they will find they're getting better access to better care.

"For the losers, they will find that community beds in their own area have gone and/or they're having to travel further to get the acute hospital services they need - and those longer journeys will have the potential of putting them at more risk than they were before. Today's decisions mark a beginning, not an end.

"The changes will take years to implement. The concerns local people have will not go away and in the years to come health bosses will need to show even more that they are listening to those concerns, taking them seriously and involving local people in the design of future services."

Tim Goodson, chief officer of Dorset CCG said changes are part of a five year plan and spoke to reassure residents the changes will not signal the privatisation of the NHS.

He said: "I think it is great people are passionate about the NHS. This isn't about privatisation. This is an NHS review, led by the NHS, started by the NHS, it involved NHS staff clinicians and everything we have spoken about is about the NHS services. We are doing this to ensure a great future for the NHS in Dorset. That is 100 per cent what it has been about."