As our population grows and more people are living longer with multiple long-term conditions, the demand for health services is growing and changing.

Current services were not designed to meet these changing needs. The NHS as a whole does not have enough skilled professionals to deliver every service in every area, and it is becoming harder to keep up with rising costs.

Both trusts are committed to delivering safe, sustainable, high-quality hospital services that meet local needs. To do this, we recognise that we need to change the way we work to ensure that we have the right skills and equipment to deliver the high standards we expect for our population.

While our hospitals deliver a good standard of safe care, we recognise that our services are not sustainable and are not consistently delivering NHS constitutional standards seven days a week. Operational performance is extremely challenged. We also recognise the significant workforce challenges, the need to support our teams and to create greater resilience in services.

The combination of these factors means that we will not always be able to deliver the high-quality services and experience we aspire to for our population. These issues must be addressed – and so it is time to make a change.

Services reviews have been undertaken by our clinicians to assess:

> Capacity & Demand;

> Quality & Outcomes; and

> Workforce Resilience in 10 clinical specialties.

You can download the full Case for Change, or a summary version below.

Alternatively, you can find out more by clicking on the following links:

>> Why are we doing this?

>> Our Ambition

>> Clinical Reviews

>> Local Views

>> Equality Impact