THE NHS in Cornwall said it acknowledges ‘concerns’ raised about the future of Launceston Hospital by local residents.

Last week, the Post reported St Stephen by Launceston Rural Parish Council had written an open letter to Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, saying parishioners ‘fear that they might lose their minor injuries unit and other services at Launceston Hospital’.

The letter referred to parishioners’ ‘deep concerns … about the future of our health provision with the imminent implementation of a shadow Accountable Care System in Cornwall from April 1’.

However, NHS Kernow’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said last week that ‘absolutely no decisions have been made about the future number or location of community services’.

On February 5, members of Cornwall Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee decided to recommend to the council’s cabinet that a new joint health and care committee is set up to test how joined up strategic commissioning for health and social care can work — known as a ‘shadow Accountable Care System’ (ACS). Members of the committee recommended to cabinet that, as this is a new way of working, there should be a transition period, described as shadow working, so that the emerging model is tested, reviewed and refined.

The NHS and local government in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly are agreed that the way services are currently commissioned and provided will not address the changing needs of their local communities, that doing more of the same is financially unsustainable and will not guarantee that quality and safety of care will improve. Their combined view is that they need to work together as an ACS to enable more integrated care that serves the needs of the whole population.

The shadow ACS — made up of Cornwall Council, Council of the Isles of Scilly, NHS Kernow CCG and NHS England — would operate within the existing statutory framework, which means the councils, NHS England, the CCG and NHS provider trusts will remain the statutory accountable bodies in the system.

In response to the open letter sent by the parish council, a spokesperson for NHS Kernow CCG said: “We acknowledge the concerns raised by parishioners in their letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt.

“Discussions are ongoing between all local health and care organisations who are working together and talking to colleagues in Devon around an integrated care system. These discussions are focused on ensuring care is joined up, and as close to home as possible reflecting that a proportion of the population in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly live in rural areas.

“Absolutely no decisions have been made about the future number or location of community services.

“We will continue to consider how all of our services fit into our Shaping Our Future vision to create a seamless health and care system that provides the best clinical outcomes and value for money, based on people’s needs and the money we have available to spend. Once the detail of the service model is clear we can then look to see what infrastructure is required to support this.

“We are still in the process of working with clinicians, people working in social care, volunteers, councillors and people who use our services on the re-design of our health and care system. The third round of our co-production workshops begins this month to help develop our plans.”