SUPPORTERS of a new community hospital for Evesham should not be discouraged by reports that it could be affected by the credit crunch, it was claimed this week.

Evesham town councillor Frances Smith, who is also chairman of the hospital’s league of friends, said that a small project group was still studying the overall picture, including the future health needs of the town as a whole.

“This work is still going on, albeit slowly,” she said. “The Primary Care Trust has indicated that it intends to set up another group to continue this work.”

Your Worcester News reported last week that Paul Bates, chief executive of Worcestershire PCT, told a meeting of the county council health overview and scrutiny committee that he could not confirm in the current economic climate whether Eve-sham would get a new community hospital.

Mr Bates accepted that a decision on whether to keep the hospital or build a new one would have to be made at some stage but he could not give assurances at the moment.

He said that with 100 beds, Evesham was three to four times the size of most other community hospitals.

But he also said: “The hospital plays a critically important role. I find it difficult to envisage a future without an Evesham hospital.”

The Worcestershire Primary Care Trust has already made commitments, including a new satellite radiotherapy unit for Worcester by 2012 and £3.5 million improvements to county maternity services, including a new midwife-led birth unit in the city.

Mr Bates, who was discussing the county’s health strategy, warned that the PCT would not able to support as many commitments for the immediate future.

A hard fought Save Our Hospital campaign resulted in a series of cuts to services at Evesham Community Hosp-ital being scrapped by what was then South Worcester-shire Primary Care Trust.

About 3,000 people attended a rally in Evesham and a 30,000-signature petition was handed to Prime Minister Tony Blair in September, 2005.