Six options for delivering future hospital services across north and mid Hampshire are currently being considered by local NHS organisations as part of the Hampshire Together: Modernising our Hospitals and Health Services programme.
We are looking at the best way to organise services to meet the population’s changing health needs and to adapt the way some services are delivered so they can continue to meet best practice guidelines. We have been exploring the possibility of centralising some of the most specialist hospital services for the sickest people on one site, rather than spread across two main sites as they currently are.
Consolidating the most specialist services in one place would mean a better use of senior clinicians, who are currently spread too thinly across hospital sites. It would also mean clinical teams treat more patients with particular conditions and illnesses, helping to better maintain their specialist expertise.
The programme includes the potential for the construction of a brand new hospital as part of the Government’s Health Infrastructure Plan.
Doctors, nurses and other clinicians from north and mid Hampshire recently held a series of conversations and virtual workshops to look at how health and care services could be designed for the future. More than 100 people, including current patients with experience of using hospital services, clinicians from across the health and care system, and representatives of various groups from the community took part. They initially developed eight options for the way services could be provided in the future.
The eight options were then considered by doctors, nurses, and other clinicians and evaluated against pre-agreed criteria to decide whether they should be discounted or taken forward and investigated further. Two options were discounted during this process. One because it involved continuing to run services as they are currently set up (named Option A), and another because it involved moving all services to a new hospital, with no facilities elsewhere (Option H).
Five of the six options being explored involve the construction of a new hospital. Four of the six options involve the development of a main satellite hospital, which would contain an urgent treatment centre, step down inpatient care for patients requiring services such as physiotherapy, midwife-led maternity care, and diagnostic tests such as MRI scans and blood tests. All options have some health care services provided elsewhere, working together as a network to serve the people of north and mid Hampshire.
The six options currently being explored, as well as the two that have been discounted, are:
This option involves continuing to run services as they are delivered at present, carrying out essential maintenance to provide safe care for patients in the current buildings.
This option has been discounted given the expected population growth in north and mid Hampshire, the fact that key services would likely be lost and the condition of the buildings.
This option means the investment would be made to sustain hospital services at the Basingstoke and Winchester sites for the long-term.
Services including emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be centralised at one of the hospitals. Centralisation will help to ensure delivery of the clinical quality standards required for these services, so they can continue to be provided in north and mid Hampshire.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option means emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be in an acute centralised hospital, as would a new outpatient centre which would enable patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit.
A centre for surgery planned in advance would be provided from a main local hospital, which would also benefit from additional investment.
Outpatient consultations and a range of other hospital services would be provided at additional local hospitals across north and mid Hampshire.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option means emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be in an acute centralised hospital, as would a centre for surgery planned in advance and a new outpatient centre which would enable patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit.
Outpatient consultations and a range of other hospital services would be provided at local hospitals across north and mid Hampshire, with some additional investment.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option means emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be in an acute centralised hospital, as would a centre for surgery planned in advance and a new outpatient centre which would enable patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit.
An outpatient centre, offering the same services described above, would also be provided from a main local hospital, which would also benefit from additional investment.
In addition, outpatient consultations and a range of other hospital services would be provided at additional local locations across north and mid Hampshire.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option means emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be centralised in an acute centralised hospital, as would a new outpatient centre, which would enable patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit.
A centre for surgery planned in advance and an outpatient centre offering the same services described above would be provided from a main local hospital, which would also benefit from additional investment.
In addition, outpatient consultations and a range of other hospital services would be provided at additional local locations across north and mid Hampshire.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option means emergency care, consultant-led maternity care and intensive care would be centralised in an acute centralised hospital, as would a centre for surgery planned in advance.
An outpatient centre which would enable patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit would be provided from a main local hospital, which would also benefit from additional investment.
In addition, outpatient consultations and a range of other hospital services would be provided at additional local locations across north and mid Hampshire.
This option will receive further consideration.
This option involves building a new hospital to house centralised services including emergency care, emergency surgery, complicated planned surgery, consultant-led maternity care, intensive care, neonatal care, paediatric care, cancer care and inpatient care.
A Planned Surgery Centre would be located on the site of the new hospital, carrying out fairly simple surgical procedures that may involve patients requiring general anaesthetic but are not expected to result in admission to intensive care (examples include some hip and knee replacement and cancer operations).
A complex outpatient centre, enabling patients to undergo scans, have tests carried out and have an appointment with their consultant in the same visit, would also be located at the new hospital.
In this option, there would not be a satellite location offering local services in a different area.
This option has been discounted due to the travel implications that it would have for patients who did not live close to the new hospital.
