Health services face merger in NHS switch

A shake-up of health services is likely to see a new pathology unit - serving much of Surrey, Mid Sussex, Horsham and Crawley - opening in Haywards Heath.

It is part of cash-saving proposals outlined in the nationwide ‘sustainability and transformation plan’ for the NHS.

If it goes ahead, it will mean the closure of a current path lab at Crawley Hospital and pathology services - essential for the diagnosis of diseases and illnesses - merged at a new unit at the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath.

According to a report from a group known as Monitor, part of NHS Improvement, merging the services will offer financial efficiency through ‘significant economies of scale.’ It says Crawley Hospital would no longer provide pathology services.

A spokesman for Sussex & East Surrey Sustainability & Transformation Partnership said the proposed new unit would improve and speed up how pathology services were carried out and make them ‘more sustainable for the future.’

The Government has earmarked more than £19 million for a new state-of-the-art building and equipment at the Haywards Heath site. Funding will be released subject to business cases being approved by the Department of Health

and Social Care and the Treasury.