COUNCILLORS were told it was “vital” a hospital trust gets its future strategy right - as it faces taking on thousands more patients.

Dr Shane Gordon was speaking to the Health Overview Policy and Scrutiny Committee at County Hall.

He said the trust would be facing a significant increase in demand in the next five years.

He said: “We would expect if we don’t change the way we deliver our services to have to absorb something in the region of 50,000 more outpatient contacts, we would need to provide something in the region of 131 acute hospital beds – which is more than five wards worth of beds.

“We currently do struggle with staffing on our existing footprint and building five more wards – even if we could afford to build them – we wouldn’t be able to staff them.

“That is a significant challenge in a reasonably short space of time.

“In the longer term, of course, if the garden communities get the green light at some stage that number and pressure accelerates rather than slows down.

“There is inpatient surgical activity which would require more theatres as well, although the numbers there are a little more modest.

“I think it is enough to give anybody pause for thought, so the strategy has got to show us how we respond to that in a way that we can manage, rather than the way we are delivering services now.

“If we continue to deliver services in the way we are now and have to provide five more wards, the system simply won’t work – there is no way in which that could happen.

“The strategy has got to take us in a different direction.”