DELAYS to the long-awaited review of hospital services in Worcestershire – originally slated to be complete by the end of 2014 – have been slammed by one of the county’s senior health bosses.

Speaking at a meeting of NHS South Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group last week, the organisation’s chief operating officer Simon Trickett said he was seriously concerned about the impact of delays to the scheme.

The project, which includes reorganising emergency and maternity services at Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital, has been in progress since 2012, but has been beset by delays.

Although a public consultation into the plans was expected to be held last autumn, it was delayed until after the West Midlands Clinical Senate had put together an independent report into the plans, which is not expected to be published until next month at the earliest.

Speaking at the meeting Mr Trickett said: “We all accept the current model isn’t sustainable. It’s not delivering the type of services and outcomes we want.

“This has taken too long.

“We are very concerned about a lot of this – services involved are those that need to keep staff.”

But he said he believed some progress would be made in the near future.

“I suspect the way it will play out is if we get a positive report within eight to 10 weeks we will be able to start the consultation process,” he said.

“That will run for three months and then we will need to review it and look at what changes.

“There’s a real workforce deficit in some areas and we absolutely need to plan, but it’s difficult to absolutely nail a date when we will receive the report.”