Councillors fear county will lose out in health merger

County councillors fear Herefordshire will become ‘the poor relation’ when the local clinical commissioning group merges with three others in Worcestershire Clinical commissioning groups are NHS bodies responsible for planning local healthcare services.

The current plans would see the four groups of Herefordshire, Redditch and Bromsgrove, South Worcestershire and Wyre Forest merge into one which would save £2m.

Councillor Jim Kenyon spoke against the plans at this week’s adults and wellbeing scrutiny committee and compared it to fire service which is shared across both counties.

“With the fire service, Herefordshire is a poor cousin to Worcestershire,” he said.

“I feel that this could happen to the hospitals. If we have not got people fighting our corner for Herefordshire it is going to drift.

“It already is drifting. Don’t have a stroke today in Hereford because if you have it in Birmingham you’ve got a 20% better chance of a good outcome.

“That’s what we are fighting against every day in Herefordshire.”

Coun Carole Gandy asked if the county would lose funding.

“I am very concerned we could lose funding in order to compensate funding in other sections of Worcestershire,” she said.

CCG accountable officer Simon Trickett said funding decisions were out of his control.

“If they approve the merger, someone clever will get a computer out at Whitehall or somewhere and apply the funding formula to the population.

“It will be a big sophisticated algorithm which will churn out a number at the end and that will be the budget we are then given.

“Unfortunately, in our jobs as commissioners, we can’t lobby for additional funding but we’ve had a lot of conversations with MPs across both counties trying to make sure that the funding formula used takes as great an account it can of rurality and an ageing population.”