The boards of two hospital trusts will be meeting on Monday to decide whether to merge into one organisation. Is this a good or bad idea? Health Reporter SIOBHAN RYAN reports.

Campaigners fighting to save hospital services in West Sussex will be keeping a close eye on developments on Monday.

That is when the heads of Worthing and Southlands Hospitals NHS Trust and the Royal West Sussex NHS Trust decide whether to join forces.

Managers hope creating one large organisation will give both trusts stronger financial stability and help provide vital services at both Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester.

The trusts have been at the centre of controversial plans by West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) to shake up hospital services across the county.

Earlier this year the PCT came down in favour of Worthing and announced it wanted to press ahead with plans to make it the major hospital for West Sussex.

This would mean some accident and emergency, consultant maternity, emergency surgery and children’s inpatient services would be lost at Chichester.

Patients in rural areas of western Sussex would have to travel long distances to Worthing or across the border to Portsmouth in Hampshire.

Unsurprisingly, campaigners and staff at St Richard’s were furious, warning that lives would be lost if plans went ahead.

The proposals were subsequently referred to the Department of Health for an independent review but the whole process came to a grinding halt once plans for the merger were announced.

The idea of a strong trust sounds good, but what actual difference will a merger make in terms of services for patients?

Whatever the management at the top level, the most important thing for people is whether they are going to get access to full hospital facilities close to their home.

Precedents have been set before in Sussex with hospitals merging and services gradually lost at one or the other.

An obvious example is that of the merger between the former Brighton Health Care NHS Trust, which ran the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, and Mid Sussex NHS Trust Trust, which ran the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

When they merged, the Princess Royal had full services including A&E, maternity and paediatrics but over the years things have changed.

Some A&E services now go straight to Brighton, as do child inpatients. The future of maternity services is far from guaranteed at the Princess Royal although there is an active campaign to keep it going.

The Princess Royal has developed in other areas, such as being the base for routine orthopaedic surgery for all patients, but it is not the same as it was.

Elsewhere, Crawley Hospital merged with East Surrey Hospital in Redhill. Over a period of years it steadily lost services and it now operates as a community hospital, despite Crawley having one of the largest populations in West Sussex.

Despite numerous campaigns and petitions, there is still no sign of a new hospital for the town.

So what is the likelihood of something similar happening between Worthing and Chichester?

A merger may go ahead but there is no guarantee that full A&E, maternity and emergency surgery services will be kept at both hospitals.

Worthing is likely to turn out to be the dominant hospital of the two while Chichester takes the same route as the Princess Royal.

But then again it might not.

Campaigners could take heart from a similar story in East Sussex.

There, the trusts running Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards merged a few years ago, but full services are still running at both.

When PCTs in East Sussex tried to downgrade maternity services at Eastbourne DGH they were met with a wave of opposition from thousands of residents, medics, MPs and NHS staff.

Although the PCT opted to press ahead with their plans, Health Secretary Alan Johnson backed an independent review ordering them to keep consultant maternity units at both sites.

West Sussex PCT says it is waiting to see what decision the hospitals take over the merger before deciding its next move.

It will either press ahead with its original plans to develop Worthing, which will subsequently mean the review put on hold by the Department of Health will go ahead, or if it decides to draw up alternative plans, they will have to go to consultation and we are back to where we started.

We will have to wait and see what West Sussex PCT decides, but the one thing that is certain is that this story is far from over.

Let us know what you think below.