MORE details have emerged this week about the plans to close Chase Community HospitalÕs only inpatient ward.

The North and Mid Hampshire Health Authority (NMHHA) published its consultation document Improving Performance in North and Mid Hampshire, which incorporates the money-saving measures, on Monday.

The measures have been put forward by the North Hampshire Primary Care Trust, which provides community-based services for the authority.

The document confirms fears that plans have been put forward to close the 24-bed MacIlwain ward, which currently accommodates 24 beds for the elderly - eight of them GP beds, eight consultant beds and eight EMI (elderly mentally infirm).

Under the plans the eight EMI beds would be re-provided in Basingstoke at a Òmore appropriateÓ setting. The remaining 16 beds at the hospital would be closed, with an increase in home support services to tackle bed-blocking.

The Community Intensive Support Service provides nursing care in patientsÕ homes through a number of services including therapeutic rehabilitation and physiotherapy.

The document says: ÒIt is proposed that the inpatient beds at the Chase Hospital be closed from April 1 2002 with an associated full year saving of £509,500.

ÒThe Community Intensive Support Service currently operates as a pilot scheme, supporting six to eight patients in the Basingstoke area. It will be expanded to cover the whole of north Hampshire and to accept admissions seven days a week.

ÒThe expanded service will be able to care for up to 40 patients per week, including patients currently cared for through the hospital at home service.Ó

The consultation document reveals that, over a one year period, on average only 70 per cent of the GP beds at the Chase were occupied and 85 per cent of the consultant beds.

However it showed that 97 per cent of the patients in the GP beds came from the Bordon and Liphook area.

Seventy-five per cent of patients using the consultant beds were also local.

But the report says that around 70 per cent of the patients at the Chase using the two bed types could be cared for in an alternative setting and that many were at the hospital because they were waiting for alternative types of care, such as residential home placements, to be organised.

As well as putting forward proposals for the Chase, major plans to deliver consultant orthodontic services in north Hampshire in partnership with GuildfordÕs Royal Surrey County Hospital are also on the table.

Both of these new plans follow on from the Meeting the Challenges proposals which were outlined last year to combat a £10 million financial deficit across the whole of the authority.

NMHHAÕs director of planning Eileen Spiller explained why additional changes were being put forward.

She said: ÒSome people ask why Meeting the Challenges has not removed the deficit. The plans we published last year were only intended to address part of the deficit.

ÒWe set out some proposals for saving money straight away and outlined other areas that we need to look at in the future. The plans that we are publishing bring Meeting the Challenges up to date.

ÒIt must be acknowledged that Meeting the Challenges did not achieve all that we would have hoped for several reasons.

ÒFirstly we could not have predicted the full impact that the targets for modernisation and reform set out in the NHS Plan would have on local NHS finances.

ÒOn top of this we could not foresee other factors that have had a big impact on our financial situation. This includes increases in salaries and superannuation and the costs of paying for agency staff because of the difficulties we face recruiting staff.

ÒFinally, delays in transferring people from hospital beds - known as bed blocking - have had a considerable impact on the local health and care system.

ÒNot only do they cause difficulties for patients and for health services, they have also taken up management time that could have been used to improve the efficiency of the local NHS.Ó

As part of its three-month consultation period the authority has organised public meetings in Bordon and Alton to discuss the plans.

Bordon will host its first meeting on November 2 at the Forest Community Centre starting at 10 am. A second meeting at the centre has been organised for January 17 to start at 7 pm.

The first of two meetings at AltonÕs Community Centre will take place on November 12 at 7 pm, with a second planned for January 11 at 10 am.

Copies of the consultation document are available on the NMHHAÕs website at http://www.hants.gov.uk/nmhha">http://www.hants.gov.uk/nmhha.

Anyone wishing to make comments on the proposals can write to the authorityÕs chief executive Gareth Cruddace by January 31 2002 at the North and Mid Hampshire Health Authority, Harness House, Aldermaston Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG24 9NB.