Respondng to a press release issued by the Isle of Wight Labour Party consultant surgeon Mr Steve Parker, Clinical Lead for the Acute Service Redesign (ASR) programme, said:
“Through our Acute Service Redesign work, clinical experts are currently reviewing several different options to ensure hospital based services provide safe, good quality and affordable care for people now and in the future. We are absolutely committed to the continued improvement of the Island’s hospital services and making sure Islanders can achieve health outcomes that are equal to any that might be experienced by NHS patients across the country. In some acute services, treating our most seriously ill patients, where we are finding it difficult to maintain acceptable standards and staffing levels, this will include assessing whether it will be safe to continue providing those services on the Isle of Wight in the future. However, as a point of principle, we remain committed to retaining as much of our clinical activity here on Island as possible to minimise travel for Islanders.
“The Clinical Commissioning Group will be reviewing the work to date at its meeting in public on 1st February. No decisions have been made and there remains a significant amount of work to do over the course of this year to explore this further and we will continue to engage with and involve the public during this process.”
