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Health chiefs leading the shake-up to stroke services have confirmed the opening of three new hyper acute units has been delayed while they wait for a decision on legal challenges and capital funding.
Emergency stroke treatment at QEQM Hospital in Margate is due to end when the new acute unit (HASU) opens at the William Harvey in Ashford, with two others opening at Darent Valley in Dartford and at Maidstone General Hospital.
The Ashford facility was scheduled to open in spring 2021 and the others in spring 2020, but this has been pushed back to autumn 2022 and April 2021 respectively.
A spokesman for the Kent and Medway review of urgent stroke services says this is due to the legal challenges by campaigners, including Save Our NHS In Kent (SONIK) and resident Marion Kepple - who want services to stay at Margate - which led to judicial reviews last week, as well as the need for capital funding to be released.
She says stroke services will continue to run as they are now at the QEQM until the outcome of the judicial reviews and final decision by the Secretary of State.
"The uncertainty caused by the ongoing delay to the reconfiguration of services is naturally unsettling for staff and we continue to monitor workforce risks very carefully both at an organisational and county wide level," she said.
"At the time of the decision-making meeting in February 2019, the draft implementation timeline anticipated that the earliest the HASUs at Maidstone and Darent Valley hospitals could go live was early spring of 2020 with the HASU at William Harvey following approximately a year later."
She says the legal challenges and the need for NHS England and NHS Improvement to agree the release of capital funding to implement the units are impacting the timeline.
"The legal advice we have received is that we can and should continue with implementation planning, but we should not take any irreversible decisions," she said.
"This means that the vast majority of our implementation work continues, for example workforce and IT planning, and the development of detailed policies and operating procedures to support new ways of working in the HASUs.
"However we have not been able to commence the building works required at any of the sites as these require financial investment and it would not be right to spend public money on this work at this stage."
She says depending on the Secretary of State's decision and capital funding, the earliest the HASUs can go live at Darent Valley Hospital and Maidstone Hospital is currently April 2021, and the autumn of 2022 at William Harvey Hospital.
She added: "The Kent and Medway stroke review requires a capital investment of circa £28.5 million to implement the approved option of the hyper acute stroke units.
"The additional time for William Harvey to implement delivery of a HASU is related to the scale of the building works required on that site."
Campaigners from SONIK warn the threat of closure could result in staff leaving the QEQEM.
"We of course welcome the decision to suspend the closure of the stroke unit in Margate’s hospital, but we fear that unless the hospital trust acts urgently to retain staff it will close by default," a spokesman said.
"SONIK has already asked repeatedly that East Kent Hospitals trust urgently pays retention premia to QEQM staff to stop them from leaving while their jobs hang in the balance.
"The trust refused. Surely now they must agree to do this, otherwise QEQM's stroke unit might become understaffed. It is their duty to prevent this."
The NHS spokesman says East Kent Hospitals trust is working closely with their stroke staff to develop services.
"For this reason they introduced a recruitment and retention incentive for newly recruited stroke nurses earlier this year at all hospitals in east Kent, including the QEQM Hospital," she added.
