Council goes to judicial review over minor injuries unit move

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is challenging a local proposal to close a minor injuries unit at Heatherwood Hospital, in Ascot, and replace it with a new urgent care centre in Bracknell, in a clinic owned by Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust.

The two sites are 2.2 miles apart, but the Bracknell site is not within the borough’s boundaries.

Windsor and Maidenhead voted to apply for a judicial review in the hope of overturning plans to close the Heatherwood unit.

The decision to change services was finalised in March by Berkshire East and Berkshire West primary care trusts, but all local CCGs and relevant provider trusts signed up.

Cllr Sayonara Luxton, chair of the Windsor and Maidenhead adult services and health overview and scrutiny panel, said: “Residents come first in our borough and the reason the council is uniting with them to resist the centralisation of health services is because the system at Heatherwood works.”

She called the decision, by NHS commissioners to change the service, “undemocratic”.

A joint statement issued by the local CCGs and Heatherwood and Wexham Park and Frimley Park foundation trusts, said the legal challenge would cause “substantial legal costs” for both the local NHS and the council, “at a time when budgets for front line services are stretched”.

Adrian Hayter, clinical chair of Windsor and Maidenhead CCG said: “This challenge would mean we are unable to expand urgent walk-in services at a time when accident and emergency services are under increasing pressure.”

Dale Birch, deputy leader of Bracknell Forest Council, added: “Instead of joining with health professionals in delivering much needed health service improvements, Windsor and Maidenhead’s attempt to protect obsolete facilities at Heatherwood is jeopardising wider health care reforms across the whole of East Berkshire.”

There has been no challenge to local plans to permanently close the Ascot Birth Centre, also on the Heatherwood site, or to move rehabilitation services out of the hospital and into the community.

Frimley Park and Heatherwood and Wexham Park Foundation Trusts are currently in talks over a possible merger, and the future of the Heatherwood site is a key part of the negotiations.

Meanwhile Royal Berkshire Foundation Trust is losing money on its Bracknell clinic and needs services to be provided on the site for it to be financially viable.