THE chief executive of Worcestershire County Council has waded into the hospital debate - saying cash must be delivered for an NHS overhaul.

Clare Marchant says an ambitious blueprint to keep sick people out of A&E will only work if serious funds are handed over, warning health bosses: "The money has to follow".

She has also revealed how senior directors at County Hall are having phone conversations at least twice daily with acute trust counterparts about the situation at Worcestershire royal, as they battle to keep on top of hospital discharges.

The events at the royal, where two patients died after waiting on trolleys and another was found hanged, have shocked the council's leadership, which is trying to integrate more of its health services with the NHS.

Ms Marchant says the Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), which calls for a wave of nurses and GPs to go into people's homes and keep them away from A&E, needs financial backing.

"We spend more in the public sector now than we did when I first arrived at this authority seven years ago, £3.6 billion is now spent across the public sector in Worcestershire," she said.

"However that is against a context of rising demand, and not just for us as a county council."

She added: "I'm in constant conversation with health colleagues so they can assess some of the patients they have and get them out of hospital.

"That's a conversation that's going on day in, day out at the moment, and not just because of Worcestershire royal, but across the country.

"At a strategic level we've done all we can to ensure ourselves that the STP, the five-year plan for the NHS, is looking at this 'hospital-to-home' strategy, which we'd applaud, but that the money follows that.

"The money has to follow this hospital-to-home strategy."

Worcester News:

She also said 26 patients were recorded as 'delayed discharges' in December, although the figure has dropped significantly in the last two years.

The funding rallying call follows a bid for £29 million from county health chiefs to NHS England to revamp acute services, which would include expanding the royal.

The STP also includes a controversial 44 per cent reduction in community hospital beds, which we first revealed in November - a suggestion which is being fiercely resisted by MPs.

In recent days both Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have waded into the royal's problems, with Mr Hunt saying it is the hospital he is "most worried about" in the country.