MERGING Colchester and Ipswich hospitals is “the only way” to make sure patients are given the care they deserve, health bosses warned.

During a heated meeting of both hospital’s trusts yesterday, Nick Hulme, head at both Colchester and Ipswich, also told the audience district hospitals will become “a thing of the past”.

Documents put before the board also showed the trusts are on course to hit a combined £45 million deficit within the next five years.

As a result, Dr Shane Gordon, director of integration at Colchester General Hospital, said by merging the trusts, bosses hope to secure £70 million in new Government funding.

He said the merger would save about £40 million, mostly through cutting administration costs, IT costs and large temporary staff costs.

Dr Gordon also signalled initial plans to centralise spinal and limb trauma services as well as cardiology in a bid to cut waiting times and improve patient care.

Chief Executive Mr Hulme said: “In the likelihood of no significant investment over the next five years, only through working together can we ever hope to continue to deliver the care that ourselves, the board and all the staff are so proud to deliver to you and your families.

“District general hospitals will be a thing of the past.

“Up and down the country, you are seeing organisations come together to work differently.

“It is our belief that with the two organisations coming together, the sum of their parts will be so much greater than the two separate, autonomous organisations.”

He also told the meeting there would be “no significant reconfiguration of services without public consultation”.

Dr Gordon added the merger would also mean the single trust would offer more clinical services than in some teaching hospitals across the east of England.

He also said centralising spinal and trauma services would “offer access to expertise to patients as early as possible”.

He added neither hospital is meeting national waiting time standards in cardiology and a merging that service could see a significant improvement.

Dr Gordon said: “Combining the ten cardiologists between us, we believe, can offer all the patients access within the national standard waiting times.”

In the last 20 years, there have been 20 NHS trust mergers and the hospital boss Dr Gordon admitted: “Some have been positive, some have been less positive.”

It also emerged the Colchester trust has lodged a “formal concern” over an assumption health services in north east Essex could cope when two new towns are built east and west of Colchester as part of plans to meet housing targets.

Board directors gave the merger plans the green light at Langham Community Centre.

Specific details on the plans are expected to be confirmed early next year.

Mr Hulme added: “I’m pleased that the Colchester and Ipswich hospital boards have supported the development of our trusts into a single organisation with full integration.

"Getting to this point has involved a huge amount of work and I’m grateful to our staff, patients and partners for taking the time to share their views on the various options we were exploring.

“We now have the challenge of setting out how we will create a new trust.

"For this we will be asking the public, our patients, staff and stakeholders to help us define more clearly what we want to achieve and how we can improve services.

"This is a landmark opportunity for us to create the future for healthcare in this part of East Anglia and I’m looking forward to sharing our blueprint for a new organisation in the early part of next year.”