THE chief executive at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has promised that Basingstoke hospital would not close if a proposed new £150million hospital was to be given the go-ahead.

As previously reported by The Gazette, West Hampshire and North Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Groups, which pays trusts including HHFT to provide health services, sent a letter to stakeholders saying it could not support a formal public consultation at the current stage.

The letter said: “The primary reason for this is that the predicted costs of services supplied in this way significantly exceed the funds available to commissioners.”

In addition, the letter said the groups are recommending a “whole system program to re-design health and social care across north and mid Hampshire. It will be clinically led and will encompass acute, community, mental health, primary and social care.”

The proposal, for land north of the M3’s junction 7, would offer 24-hour consultant care and would include an £18.5m cancer treatment unit to centralise chemotherapy.

However, 85 per cent of the trust’s services would remain at Basingstoke, Andover and Winchester hospitals.

But Christine Rowley, spokesperson for the North Waltham Action Group, raised a number of concerns over the plan, including the trust’s finances and the future of the current Basingstoke hospital if the new Critical Treatment Hospital was to go ahead.

Mrs Rowley also raised concerns that the planning application is to be decided by the borough council’s development control committee and not by all 60 councillors as the decision affected all areas of the borough.

She told The Gazette: “They (HHFT) are very anti-answering questions in regards to how it would be funded, how it is going to affect existing hospitals and why they are still pushing forward with it when the CCGs are not backing it at this time.

“They haven’t consulted with the public to let them know what is happening to the existing hospitals. They deny they are going to sell buildings or land but how are they going to pay when they are £4.3m in debt and how are they going to pay £6m for the land?

“They are not being honest. I don’t mind a consultation if they are going to be honest and say they can’t afford to run four hospitals.”

Mrs Rowley added: “If you are having a major operation and are in an at risk category, you would have it done there (at the CTH). But what happens if you have a normal operation and it goes wrong?”

Councillors on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s development control committee are set to debate the planning application at a meeting on Wednesday.

The application has been recommended for approval by planning officers.

But Mary Edwards, chief executive at HHFT, defended the plans and said the recommendation for planning approval was “a big step forward”.

She told The Gazette that the trust has held public consultations on the plan and have answered questions at every available opportunity.

When asked if all services offered at Basingstoke would be transferred and the current hospital closed, Mrs Edwards said: “Absolutely not, it would defeat the object.

"The whole point of the new place is the benefit. It is consultant led and the ambulances will get patients in fast to the right consultant, eqipment and treatment. In this part - hearts and strokes - it is all about time."

When asked what would happen to patients if something went wrong during a routine operation at Basingstoke hospital, Mrs Edwards said: “We will have critical care outreach teams, which we have already have, and the only thing that is a bit different is the distance between the Critical Treatment Hospital and the (Basingstoke) hospital.

“If a patient is on a surgical ward and their observations change and we think what is happening here, we would call the outreach team, who are experienced intensive care nurses and doctors, come and assess patients and would react to provide treatment to stabilise them if that is the right thing".

The chief executive also said the trust was planning to have a “very reliable and service” in which they would contact the ambulance service to transport patients to the new hospital if they required intensive care treatment and needed to be moved.

Mrs Edwards said the hospital would need to take out a loan which would require a repayment of around £10 to £12m per year.

She added: “Centralised services are the most expensive bit of the service but we would generate savings of £16m per year so centralising (services) would give us a small profit”.

"It does reduce the ongoing costs and enables us to provide 24/7 consultant care."