Mayor Dave - Healthcare Review Plans Must be Scrapped, not 'Built Upon', for Sake of Bedford Hospital

Mayor Dave Hodgson has said that the flawed work of the Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes Healthcare Review, which culminated in proposals to close maternity services at Bedford Hospital, must be scrapped altogether and not continued within the successor STP (Sustainability and Transformation Plan) process.

He made the comments following a joint Healthcare Review/STP statement which said that while the Healthcare Review is ceasing as a separate programme, its work will be 'progressed as an integral part of the STP process for Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Luton.'

Commenting, Mayor Dave said: "To move on constructively from the damaging uncertainty and unacceptable cuts proposed by the Healthcare Review, we believe that the best interests of local patients and healthcare staff would be served by rejecting its flawed work.'

"Instead, we should be working together to develop comprehensive, sustainable solutions such as that outlined in the report we commissioned, around integrating health and social care. We are therefore disappointed to hear STP colleagues state that the STP is committed to 'building on' the Healthcare Review's work.'

"That is the sort of language we heard at the time of the end of the discredited Healthier Together Review. We subsequently saw its blunt, crude focus on hospital service cuts continue in the Healthcare Review. We need a new approach, which recognises that there is no genuinely sustainable solution for the future without social care. The STP represents an opportunity to work together to plan for the extremely challenging times ahead for health and social care services, and as a supposed partner in the STP that is what we will be working towards."