IN recent weeks The Northern Echo has received tip-offs and heard rumours that health services in the region are set to drastically change – and not for the better.

People claiming to be staff at North-East hospitals have told us of meetings taking place between senior NHS officials discussing the transfer of vital services from smaller hospitals to larger centres.

The NHS in Darlington, Durham and the Tees Valley is now in the process of holding public meetings about the Better Health Programme, which will shape how services are changed across the North-East and Teesside.

Meetings have already been held in Darlington, Barnard Castle and Sedgefield, and further events are taking place throughout May.

So is the Better Health Programme just cost-cutting by another name? Apparently not says Dr Boleslaw Posmyk, a Hartlepool GP and clinical lead of the programme.

He explained that changes must be made because people are now living longer and health services must adapt to demographic, technological, medical and manpower changes.

However, Dr Posmyk said that changes will only be implemented to improve the life chances and experience of patients and help hospitals meet clinical standards set by the government.

And although people are used to an established system that a lot of procedures happen at all hospitals, that model is no longer sustainable.

Derek Cruickshank, consultant gynaecological oncologist and programme lead for hospital care, explained: “At the moment the major trauma centres in the North-East are James Cook and Newcastle,” he said.

“So for trauma patients, they are passing the local hospitals to get to the trauma centre and even with that travel, the outcomes are a 20 per cent improvement in survival.”

He said that there is an expectation, as happened in the past, that a heart-attack victim would be treated in their local hospital, but that actually their outcome is much improved by being seen in a specialist centre.

Both clinicians said there was ‘almost an infinite number’ of future scenarios for health services in the region and it was up to the public to tell them what they wanted.

Those scenarios would then be whittled down into what was achievable. Dr Posmyk said: “Interestingly, what we often get is the young mum will say ‘ooh yes I want the very best for my gran but I have got kids so I want to be able to access this locally’.

"And you get the elderly saying ‘ooh yes I want the very best for my grandchildren but I am old and I want to be able to access this locally’.

"And what we want is the very best for everybody and where we can we will put in what we can for people to access locally. But what we can’t do is provide everything to be accessed locally."

The Better Health programme is also exploring how services can be delivered more effectively within the community.

However, Dr Posmyk stressed this does not mean critically ill people will not receive the hospital treatment they need.

“It is about making sure that we have got a very senior clinical decision-maker seeing you when you are very ill and that you are doing that as close to 24-hours-a-day every day of the week as you can."

Dr Posmyk added that he wanted the region to become known as a centre for clinical excellence to help boost the recruitment of high calibre medical staff.

Addressing the Darlington A&E concerns, Dr Posmyk said there were ‘no preconceptions’ about what will happen to the service in future.

He said: "What I was wanting to stress is that the Darlington meeting is happening as exactly the same meetings are happening in my area, there is one in Hartlepool, one in Eaglescliffe, 17 in total so 16 other meetings like that across the area talking about exactly the same thing, about all the hospitals and all the services."

He added: "We are at the stage where this is clearly the time where the public can influence and inform us as to how we make those decisions; we will listen to everybody."

The formal Better Health consultation exercise starts this November, with decisions on services expected to be made in April next year. More information about the programme and where meetings are taking place can be found at nhsbetterhealth.org.uk. Questions can also be sent to necsu.betterhealthprogramme@nhs.net