ALTERNATIVE proposals for the future of Milford Hospital will be considered - but maintaining the status quo is not an option - health chiefs have said.
The promise was made last Thursday at a crunch meeting of the local primary care trust, which runs the rehabilitation hospital.
At the meeting, the PCT agreed to consider plans to close the hospital and transfer its services to neighbouring hospitals, sparking a major consultation exercise.
Under the plans, as reported by last week's Herald, the 50 rehabilitation beds at the hospital will be "relocated" to the Farnham and the Royal Surrey County Hospitals.
The PCT argues that measures to crack down on bedblocking have freed beds which can be used by the rehabilitation patients - many of whom are recovering from strokes.
The trust also plans to transfer its 10 orthopaedic beds, currently at Milford, to the Royal Surrey and transfer its day services to Haslemere, Cranleigh and the Royal Surrey Hospitals.
Campaigners, who have been fighting for months to save the hospital from closure, have vowed to fight on and do all they can to prevent its demise.
However, the trust may have thrown them a lifeline and has promised that it will consider viable alternative options which meet the same aims as the closure plans - to use resources efficiently and to save money.
"We want to invest in services not buildings," the PCT's chief executive Elizabeth Slinn told the meeting.
"We are looking at 10 years not one year."
She said that the PCT was not telling local residents to "take it or leave it" when putting forward its closure plans. She added: "What we are not prepared to do is a 'do nothing' option".
She explained that the PCT had to make changes to the rehabilitation service and Milford Hospital but said that viable suggestions would be considered.
"We know that people are not happy with our proposals but we could come out with something different from what we started with," she said.
"Good health is not always about beds, it is about the service that supports those beds."
The board heard that other possible options had already been examined for the Milford Hospital site, which comprises the ward block, the administration block, the X-ray block, a small number of other buildings and the adjoining car park and lawn.
The rest of the site is owned by NHS Estates which is transferring the land to English Partnerships for a government key-worker housing scheme.
Discussions for a partnership with the private sector have been ongoing but proposals would result in the demolition of the hospital or a reduction in its services, Mrs Slinn explained.
She said that she realises that there are concerns about reproducing the quality of care and ambience currently at Milford if the PCT's plans go ahead.
However, she said she was confident it could be done and pointed out that its proposals will allow the PCT to invest in its other community hospitals - including Haslemere's.
Mrs Slinn said that some rehabilitation beds were already at Farnham Community Hospital as an overflow, meaning that not all of the trust's rehabilitation services are based at Milford at present.
She also said that Milford is not a community hospital and that although it provides a "valuable service", in other areas of the country rehabilitation services are provided in the big acute hospitals.
• The PCT is currently in the process of drawing up its consultation timetable with the dates of public meetings and details of other opportunities for residents to put their views forward. Public consultation will officially get under way on October 1 will end on Christmas Eve.