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Health trusts to pay £2m bill that may lead to service cuts
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor17 Nov 2008
CASH-STRAPPED NHS trusts are to be asked to pay out £500,000 a year each for the next two years to pay for changes that could see cuts to maternity and A&E services.
Plans to overhaul healthcare in south-east London have been referred to Health Secretary Alan Johnson for a decision after widespread protest.
But NHS project managers are now asking trust boards in Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham to approve the strategy, which will cost £2million a year to run.
Bosses in Bexley, Greenwich and Lewisham will each have to pay to take charge of one area of the process.
NHS chiefs want to downgrade two major hospitals and merge A&E and maternity services in moves that will reduce the number of acute hospitals in Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham from four to three.
Under the reforms Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, will be stripped of its emergency and maternity services. University Hospital Lewisham will offer emergency surgery for just 12 hours a day, while Princess Royal in Bromley and Queen Elizabeth in Woolwich will be specialist emergency centres.
