THE future for Morecambe Bay hospital patients lies in specialist centres, according to its new chairman.

Sir David Henshaw, who was drafted in to turnaround the failing University Hopsitals of Morecambe Bay Trust (UHMBT) last month, said he wanted more partnerships with neighbouring organisations to share services and make use of centres of excellence.

At a meeting this week he told trust governors: “The future will be in partnering up to provide services. Look around the world, Australia does it well.

“I am meeting with Blackpool Teaching Hospitals Trust next week to discuss their strengths and cardiac is one. I am also meeting with Lancaster University to discuss their medical and management schools.

“We can’t provide the whole set of services at our scale.

“The future will be in specialist centres. It’s the pattern worldwide.

“That doesn’t mean that we are forcing patients to move long distances.

“You have to find ways to deploy specialist strengths around.

“We need to think outside the box and not keep thinking about the physical buildings.”

His message was met with concern by some governors.

UHMBT governor Anne Burns said: “Partnering is even more worrying for patients who have to travel a long way. It seems like more and more services are being shipped out of the area.”

After the meeting, fellow governor John Kaye added: “I have great concerns that the fragmentation of services is not in the best interest of patients.

“The idea of a centre of excellence can be a red herring. They are good for certain treatments but there is still a need for good initial treatment inside the county.”

Meanwhile, trust directors announced the start of three capital projects to reconfigure services at Royal Lancaster Infirmary, Kendal’s Westmorland Gen- eral Hospital and Furness General, in Barrow.

Sir David said the amount of money required would be discussed after the needs of each site were decided.

He said they were considering options to improve services and had not ruled out bringing certain services back to Westmorland General Hospital.

Sir David promised to be more transparent with the public. He said communication would need to be improved across the trust to end what he called ‘the worst gulf in communication between medical staff and management’ he had ever seen.