CHANGES to the way mental health patients are cared for across Worcestershire look set to go ahead without public consultation - but health chiefs must first provide evidence that services will still be accessible.
Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership has proposed changing the configuration of beds across the county, including closing the Clent and Redgrove wards at the Princess of Wales Community Hospital in Bromsgrove.
The patients who receive treatment in these wards - a general adult psychiatry ward and older adults challenging behaviour ward - would be transferred to Hill Crest in Redditch and Kidderminster Hospital.
Services within Newtown Hospital, Worcester, would remain unchanged.
The changes would save the trust, which is struggling with a £6.6m deficit, £1.5m. But Dr Ros Keeton, director of the trust, said they would also result in better standards of care for patients in more appropriate settings.
At a meeting on Monday, Worcestershire County Council's health overview and scrutiny committee looked at whether the proposals needed to go out to public consultation, but decided that assurances over accessibility to Redditch and Kidderminster for patients and their carers in Bromsgrove would suffice. Dr Keeton will now provide the necessary information and the committee will reconsider its options at its next meeting on Wednesday, November 22.
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