The closure of the Accident and Emergency department at Kidderminster Hospital by Worcestershire Health Authority in 2000 spurred Dr Richard Taylor to stand for Parliament as an Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern candidate at the 2001 general election, Taylor campaigned largely on a single issue, that of restoring the Accident & Emergency department.
[5] The three CCGs announced in March 2016 that they were facing a collective deficit of £25 million in 2016/7 and were considering restricting access to a range of treatments.
The list of treatments under consideration includes: Hereford and Worcestershire was one of the four areas chosen to trial the integration of specialised commissioning, previously run by NHS England centrally, in September 2016.
[7] The four Clinical Commissioning Groups, South Worcestershire, Redditch and Bromsgrove, Wyre Forest, and Herefordshire are to merge in 2020.
According to the trust’s clinical director for older adult mental health Dr Bernie Coope said about 8,500 people in Worcestershire – 3.4% of the entire population are living with dementia, and this figure is increasing by 3% each year.
Proposals to reorganise services to concentrate specialities on one site or the other were under consideration but public consultation was postponed until after the 2015 General Election.
Waiting times were out of control in ear, nose and throat, trauma and orthopaedics, gynaecology, general surgery and dermatology.
[13] It was decided in July 2017 to move all hospital births, inpatients children's services and emergency surgery across the county to Worcestershire Royal.