Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson has spoken out against a multi-million pound NHS overhaul that could lead to hospital mergers and A&E downgrades in Merseyside.
Suggestions included in the NHS’s five-year blueprint include reduced A&E opening hours at Southport, Whiston and Warrington hospitals, a merger of the Royal Liverpool and Aintree hospitals and a new Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
The radical proposals – contained in the sustainability and transformation plan (STP) for Cheshire and Merseyside – come as the region’s NHS faces a £900m black hole by 2021.
Yesterday Mayor Anderson spoke out against the STP at a meeting of Liverpool health and wellbeing board at the Cunard building.
At the meeting he said: “I have chaired this Health and Wellbeing Board for the last three years, yet this is the first time we have been asked, without appropriate consultation, to comment on a major strategic plan by Government which will directly affect many vulnerable residents within our city and the city region.
Full story in The Liverpool Echo 2 December 2016