ONE of the biggest overhauls of the way healthcare in our area is delivered is underway, but what will it mean for patients?

The Mid and South Essex Success Regime has been launched to avert a £216million funding crisis and is one of three introduced by the Government in areas with financial and operational crises.

At the heart of the plan is a bid to merge healthcare services provided by Southend, Basildon and Mid Essex hospitals.

It is a mammoth task which has seen "workforces" set up to bring about change in various departments under an overarching committee headed by Basildon Hospital chief executive Clare Panniker.

The timescale is short. The project must be introduced within three years to avert a financial crisis which would result in clinical commissioning groups and hospitals unable to provide adequate services to patients.

In its latest progress report, the regime revealed it will initially concentrate on the way the elderly are cared for in the community.

Ensuring people who are frail receive the support they need to stay healthy and live life on their own terms as far as possible.

It is hoped a more joined-up approach bringing together different organisations involved with care for the elderly will mean reduced need for hospital admissions.

Frailty assessment units are planned within the three hospitals to deal more efficiently with those who have to have hospital care so their treatment and eventual discharge is carefully organised, but the onus will be on prevention.

Former Halstead GP Bryan Spencer, who is leading this project, said: "A lot of the work will be in the community to prevent people going to hospital unnecessarily.

"We will be able to identify people at risk of admission and properly assess them

"A multi-disciplinary team will meed to discuss the most vulnerable people. There will be GPs and nurses and others who will provide support in the community and prevent them going to hospital.

"Sometimes a minor illness such as urinary infection can be difficult for a frail person to cope with but can be easily treated."

The changes will, in fact, not have a huge impact on the number of admissions at Southend Hospital, which has been on black alert and critical incident - its highest bed shortage alert - for many months.

Rather, they will keep the status quo and prevent things getting far worse.

Dr Spencer said: "If we did nothing we might see a 15 per cent increase in admissions. That's about 150 extra beds that would be needed in acute hospitals over the next three years. These changes will keep admissions at the current level.

“We will be speaking to patients over the next three months to hear how they want these services to work and how we can best support them to manage their own health."

Other areas being investigated by the regime, include shifting pain and dermatology services currently provided in hospital outpatient departments into the community.

Clinical support services such as pharmacy, radiology, medical physics, pathology and clinical sterile services could be merged between the hospitals.

Dan Doherty, director of clinical commissioning, Mid and South Essex Success Regime said: “There is recognition among both hospital and community based clinicians that these services predominantly provide outpatient care and could benefit patients by being provided closer to where people live rather than on an acute hospital site.

“We have set up these groups, as part of the Local Health and Care work stream of the Success Regime, to get together and look at how different proposals could be developed for these services to make them easier for patients to access.

“It is early days yet and we will of course be working with our service users to ensure their input is captured as part of any options we suggest which may then go out for public consultation before any changes could be made.”