Hospital’s future 
remains uncertain

The Bedfordshire & Milton Keynes Healthcare Review yesterday produced its latest progress report looking at the future of Bedford and Milton Keynes hospitals.

Both Bedford and Milton Keynes are currently ‘major emergency centres’, which provide 24/7 consultant-delivered A&E, with emergency surgery, acute medicine and inpatient paediatrics.

But the report, which is the latest stage of a £3.2 million review, proposes reducing one of the hospitals to an “integrated care centre with emergency centre”.

The NHS clinical commissioners in Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, who purchase local healthcare, face a combined deficit of £210m by 2023/24 unless changes are made.

The report encourages local NHS organisations to bring more healthcare closer to people’s homes.

It says that practices in Central Beds are exploring opportunities for closer networking, and mentions Biggleswade Hospital as a possible location to provide more services.

It states: “There are further opportunities for offering more care closer to home. For example, the Biggleswade Hospital site already hosts some outpatient-based services along with the local GP out-of-hours co-operative M-DOC and a small bedded unit that could be used for step up /step down care.”

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