Luton-Bedford hospitals merger animates mayor election

Bedford Hospital currently has 400 beds and the borough's Conservative mayoral candidate says a merger with Luton and Dunstable "needs to happen"

A delayed plan to merge two hospital trusts must go ahead to release millions of pounds for "frontline" NHS services, a mayoral candidate said.

Gianni Carofano, Conservative, said between £10m-£14m could be saved by combining Bedford with Luton & Dunstable hospitals.

He is one of five candidates in Thursday's Bedford Mayoral election.

Candidates said Bedford Hospital needed to retain services such as casualty and maternity.

Mr Carofano said: "The reason the merger needs to happen is because it is a merger of two trusts - you go from two to one with half the running costs.

"£10-14m is a lot of money that can be invested in front line services - in doctors and nurses," he said.

The two hospital trusts were due to merge in April 2018, but plans stalled when the Treasury turned down a bid for the £100m the NHS said was needed to create a single Foundation Trust.

A year on, the hospitals are still waiting for alternative funding plans to be worked out and the merger has become an issue among the mayoral candidates.

The Luton and Dunstable Hospital, on Lewsey Road in Luton, has 660 beds

The current mayor, Liberal Democrat Dave Hodgson, said it was essential that Bedford retained its Accident and Emergency, maternity and paediatric departments.

"There are 2,000 births [a year] in Bedford Hospital - no other hospital in the area can cope with these births if we don't have maternity services here," he said.

Labour's Jenni Jackson was not sure the merger was needed, but it needed to go ahead quickly if it was the only way of retaining core services in Bedford.

"If that is not the case, then perhaps the money would be far better spent extending facilities here," she said.

Green Party candidate Adrian Spurrell said the delays to the merger plan caused uncertainty and a drop in productivity, with staff leaving to find other jobs.

"We need to have transparency and real clarity about what is going on," he said.

Elections across Bedford Borough on Thursday, 2 May, 2019

• the directly-elected mayor runs Bedford Borough Council

• the post was introduced in 2002

• election uses the Supplementary Vote system where voters select their first and second choice candidates

• Bedford Borough Council is a unitary authority providing all local council services in the area

• Voters will also be electing councillors to all of the local authority's 40 seats

• Elections will also be held for town and parish councils across the borough

UKIP's Adrian Haynes did not support the merger plan and said he could not see "any benefit to the thousands of annual patients in continually spending millions of pounds on discussions that don't improve actual clinical care".

A spokesman for Bedford Hospital NHS Trust said A and E, maternity and paediatric services would all be retained there after a merger.

"We are aware that both NHS England and NHS Improvement are exploring other areas of capital funding for this merger project and once we have received this information we will update all stakeholders regarding our next steps," he said.

The story features on BBC Sunday Politics East on BBC One in the East of England at 14:45 BST.