The results of the recent engagement exercise on the changes to major vascular surgery services in Suffolk and Essex, are set to be discussed at next week’s meeting of the board of NHS Suffolk(25 January).

The twelve week engagement exercise, carried out by the Five Rivers Vascular Network, asked for views on the decision by vascular clinicians at Ipswich Hospital and Colchester General Hospital to carry out major vascular surgery only at Colchester General Hospital.

Whilst the vast majority of vascular patients will not be affected, as major surgery is involved in a relatively small number of procedures, the change in location of services and engagement exercise came about due to new national policy that aims to halve the mortality rate arising from patients with an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA).

The NHS Suffolk board is expected to make a decision on whether to support the decision to move major vascular surgery services to Colchester General Hospital.

There were 44 responses to the engagement exercise, with views submitted from members of the public, vascular patients, carers, clinicians and health body representatives.

The majority of responses were in favour of the move, citing reasons such as it was a clinically-led decision which would ensure major vascular surgery services would not move further afield in the future; those opposed to the changes cited reasons including increased travel time and costs and the loss of specialist services from Ipswich Hospital.

Of those who completed a questionnaire, 22 respondents agreed with the move to Colchester; one respondent was in partial agreement and 12 disagreed.

Hossein Khaled, Chairman of the Five Rivers Vascular Network said: “The engagement exercise achieved a good response from a wide variety of people who are affected by the changes.  The network will discuss the findings of the engagement exercise next month.

"The centralisation of major vascular surgery at Colchester General Hospital has been driven by vascular clinicians and the majority of respondents have indicated that they favour this move. It is important to note that much mainstream vascular work will remain at Ipswich.  This initiative has an excellent outcome for the east Suffolk population in that it also means we can commence abdominal aortic aneurysm screening from April 2012 which will have public health benefit for our population. The outcome of the exercise is important for the east Suffolk population in that it protects specialist services that may have gone further afield to other large centres such as Cambridge, Norwich or London.”