Future of Frenchay community hospital remains unclear
Decisions on the future of a community hospital at Frenchay are not expected to be made before April.
And when the NHS does update people on plans for its part of the Frenchay Hospital site it could be part of more consultation on its future.
Conservative councillors in South Gloucestershire said they were disappointed that the uncertainty of the promised community hospital is set to continue longer than they had expected.
As previously reported in The Post a review into the future of services for frail older people was launched in October and proposals for a health and social care centre at Frenchay, which was due to built in conjunction with a partner organisation, were put on hold.
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Director of strategic development for the NHS in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire said that it has been necessary to look at the number of beds and services that will be needed in the community as well as considering outpatients services and the financial position.
He told today's meeting of South Gloucestershire Council's Public Health and Health Scrutiny Committee that updates would be available over the next couple of months and would provide them with more information in April.
But he told The Post that if there are significant changes to the project as a result of the review there may be a need for further consultation.
He said: "We have made the point that we have now got this fabulous facility at Cossham but we have got to make sure that it is full."
Mr Bennett said that Cossham Hospital, which opens next week, has become a factor because there is still scope for more services to be based there.
He added that improvements in community care generally may mean fewer beds are needed at Frenchay and that such details need to be worked out before a long-term contract is signed with an organisation that would build and manage the health centre.
"If we were going to need much less or nothing at Frenchay the council would need us to consult and it would also then have an impact on what we might use beds for," he said.
Councillor John Godwin (Con, Winterbourne), a former Chairman of the Save Frenchay Hospital Group who worked on the community hospital project group, said: "As a member of the Frenchay Hospital project group, we carefully gathered plenty of data on local health needs and future projections and so it's unclear what has changed in such a short time in order to justify this latest review and all the uncertainty and local concern that it has caused."
After the meeting, he added: "It was disappointing to hear the inability of the local NHS to give us and the local community a clear date by which we will know what changes, if any, they plan to make to our planned new community hospital.
"I fought hard as part of the Frenchay Hospital project group to secure the maximum possible health services to be provided at Frenchay and I'm not about to stop now."
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