Hancock delays decision on controversial reconfiguration for 14 months

The decision concerns establishing three hyperacute stroke units in Kent and Medway, which would lead to the closure of three other units in the county.

A joint committee of the region’s clinical commissioning groups approved the plan in February 2019. However, the move faced opposition from campaigners, while Medway Council referred the decision to the health secretary in the summer of 2019. The independent reconfiguration panel was asked to assess the proposals and respond to Matt Hancock on 30 September 2019. 

It is believed this is the longest it has taken a health secretary to make a decision on IRP advice. Although the government has been occupied by both a general election and a pandemic, Mr Hancock has returned decisions on other IRP reviews recently, including giving the go ahead on a new hospital in south London within a week of receiving the IRP’s advice. 

It is not known what the panel has advised. 

Responding to an unsuccessful judicial review brought by campaigners, which was turned down by the high court in February and has been refused leave to appeal, Kent and Medway sustainability and transformation partnership said “any delay to the work to implement three new hyper acute stroke units will lead to even further avoidable death and disability. It is imperative that the NHS can progress implementation as quickly as possible to improve stroke services for everyone in Kent and Medway.”

When the CCGs approved the plan in February, it was expected services in north and west Kent could be reconfigured by March 2020. A HASU at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford could be complete in 2021, but is now not expected to be completed until August 2023. 

The HASU at the William Harvey Hospital will take 30 months to build, while the other units are expected to take around 12 months. There is also no date for the funding for the HASUs, which NHS England has approved in principle, to be released. 

Meanwhile, two stroke units at Medway and Tunbridge Wells have closed because of staffing issues, with local patients instead being sent to Darrent Valley Hospital and Maidstone Hospital. Both of these are intended sites for HASUs but are not operating as such. 

In the east of the county, services from WHH and the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Hospital in Thanet have been concentrated at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in a bid to keep them covid free. They are unlikely to return to their usual bases until 2021-22 but East Kent Hospitals University Foundation Trust has insisted the move is not an early attempt to introduce the HASU changes that would see Thanet lose its stroke unit.

The Department of Health and Social Care would not comment directly but indicated ministers were considering the advice of the IRP and would confirm next steps at the earliest opportunity.