09.05.11
Welsh hospital services must be reconfigured or face ‘collapse’
The collapse of some hospital services in Wales is “likely”, according to a new report, due to the pressure on the availability of key medical staff in some specialities.
The NHS Confederation document, The Case for Change, by Professor Marcus Longley of Glamorgan University’s Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care, recommends centralising specialist clinicians and major trauma units to improve services, and reducing the number of obstetric units and in-patient paediatric units.
The report says: “The case is really quite strong, in Wales as elsewhere in the UK, that some acute hospital services should now be reconfigured.
“On the positive side, Wales’ hospitals could provide better care in some key respects, reducing the risks of unnecessary disability and even death.
“More negatively, the pressure on the availability of key medical staff in a small number of specialities is now so great that the collapse of some services is likely.”
The BBC reports that the Welsh Government endorsed the research when it was shown to ministers in March, and is now planning a major publicity drive about the need to reconfigure services in the name of patient safety.
But campaigners in many areas are expected to protest at any downgrading of local hospital services.
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