NHS Gloucestershire has approved changes to the way some specialist hospital services are organised at their Board meeting today.

Board members gave their backing to the Fit for the Future 2 proposals following a period of extensive public and staff engagement in late Spring and Summer 2022 and subsequent review of the outputs.

It followed an earlier decision to support the changes by the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Board on 9 March.

The Fit for the Future 2 Decision Making Business Case (DMBC) set out resolutions for the following service proposals:

  • To locate the majority of Benign Gynaecology Day Cases at Cheltenham General Hospital.
  • To centralise the dedicated Diabetes and Endocrinology Inpatient beds at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and provide a Diabetes and Endocrinology *Consult service at Cheltenham General Hospital.
  • To centralise Non-Interventional Cardiology inpatient beds** at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and provide a Cardiology Consult service at Cheltenham General Hospital.
  • To locate the Hyper Acute Stroke Unit (HASU) and Acute Stroke Unit (ASU) at Cheltenham General Hospital.
  • To centralise Respiratory Inpatient beds at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and provide a Respiratory Consult service at Cheltenham General Hospital. To establish a Respiratory High Care Unit at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.

The Fit for the Future programme is about exploring how best to provide a number of specialist hospital services across the Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital sites in the future and to ensure Gloucestershire is at the leading edge of healthcare.

The engagement feedback showed there was significantly more support overall than opposition to strengthen the ‘centres of excellence’ approach to care, which reflects the way a number of inpatient services are already organised across the two hospital sites.

Chief Medical Officer at NHS Gloucestershire, Dr Andy Seymour said:

“Board members carefully considered the papers in front of them, including the output of engagement report and the decision-making business case.

We were keen to go the extra mile to ensure we reached and received feedback from our local communities and staff, using a mix of traditional and innovative approaches, which responded to the challenges brought by the pandemic.

Following the decisions today, we are confident that the changes will lead to stronger services, better able to respond to the needs of patients across the county and meet the challenges of the future.”

Medical Director at Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Prof Mark Pietroni said:

“We want to see two thriving hospital sites in Cheltenham and Gloucester with strong identities, both providing world class treatment and care.

For services, the aim is to improve health outcomes for patients, reduce waiting times and the number of cancelled operations and ensure people see the right specialist to meet their needs at the right time.

It’s also about ensuring robust staffing levels 24/7; teams have the best equipment and facilities, and we support joint working across services.”

The Hospitals Trust is also keen to create flagship centres for research, training, and learning – attracting and keeping the best staff in Gloucestershire and providing more specialist services in the county to enable people to receive care locally rather than travelling further afield.

Additional information

*A consult service provides advice and support to other specialties (service areas) on the site, including an inpatient referral service, daily visits by specialty registrars and regular visits through the week from specialty consultants.

**Centralisation of Interventional Cardiology Inpatient Beds at GRH was approved as part of FFTF1.

Implementing the service changes – following the decision by NHS Gloucestershire, permanent changes relating to four of the five FFTF2 services will formally come into effect on 31 March 2023 (they are currently located on those sites as temporary service changes).

The changes relating to the remaining service (non-interventional cardiology), will be implemented following completion of other preparatory work in September 2023.