NO CHANGE to the National Health Service in Hampshire is not an option, a public meeting heard.
Health chiefs told a meeting that the NHS must alter the way it cares for people at a time of spiralling demand and flatlining funding.
The meeting heard of the growing need for a new emergency treatment centre between Winchester and Basingstoke.
It would centralise the service for the most critically-ill 15 per cent of patients and replace the duplication of services at the North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke and the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester.
Andrew Bishop, interim chief executive of at the Hampshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust that operates the NHH and RHCH, said it also made financial sense: “By centralising services we save more money than we spend in building the new hospital.