HEALTH chiefs are drawing up options to provide Ongar with health services fit for the 21st century.

One possibility on the cards is the demolition of Ongar War Memorial Hospital and the creation of a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose health facility which would keep the war memorial name.

The first-floor beds would be moved to the new St Margaret's Community Hospital in Epping.

Urgent steps need to be taken because Ongar's two GP practices cannot provide the facilities that modern healthcare dictates and because the hospital building is not of a high enough standard.

Aidan Thomas, the chief executive of West Essex Primary Care Trust, told an invited audience of healthcare providers and health charity representatives this week: "Ongar has two fantastic GP practices. It has fantastic GPs but I think all of you know the premises are not the best. They're preventing the GPs from doing some of the things they want to do and the PCT wants them to do.

"Although the former PCT had plans to develop premises those, for different reasons, have fallen through or are not viable.

"There are also issues around the hospital building. We have no need to change any of the services that are in Ongar War Memorial Hospital and the staff are terrific. People love it, and it's a great place to rehabilitate. But one of the issues is that there's only one side room where an individual can be cared for on their own.

"I'm not criticising the hospital but what we have is a building that goes back to the 1930s. It has been extended from time to time but it's fundamentally a building that goes back to the 1930s."

There's no direct access to diagnostics or a full range of rehabilitation, which there would be if the beds were at St Margaret's.

But that would limit what the hospital could be used for in terms of inpatient care..

Health bosses are aiming to have the first wave of plans drawn up by the new year.

League of Friends chairman Sheila Jackman said: "The doctors deserve far better premises than they currently have because primary care has moved on over the years and Ongar residents are losing out because of the lack of modern facilities."

"I would like the Trust to produce some proposals which can be further considered by the working group that has volunteered to assist them to ensure that Ongar has the primary care facilities that it needs and deserves."

REDEVELOPING the Fyfield Road hospital site to create a health centre which offers a wide range of GP services and clinics for local people is one possibility which will be explored.

But Aidan Thomas, PCT chief executive stressed: "We've got no plan, and trying to impose a plan doesn't work. What I hope we can do is develop a plan."

Funding can be sought from the Government via its Community Hospitals Investment Programme.

Mr Thomas said: "I think we have to do something, it's a question of what. It could be much more of a primary care facility that provides a full range of other services for local people.

"There's no need for any redundancies among the staff. We have excellent staff and we need them wherever they're working and would be idiotic if we lost them."

He said paying for or providing transport for staff to get from Ongar to Epping would be a possibility.

"We've looked at the site to see what's possible. The site is not absolutely massive but it has got potential especially to have a building that's more spacious then the one that's there at the moment."

"We haven't got a plan, I'm starting with a blank canvas."

League of Friends chairwoman Sheila Jackman said: "The doctors deserve far better premises than they currently have because primary care has moved on over the years and Ongar residents are losing out because of the lack of modern facilities."

"I would like the Trust to produce some proposals which can be further considered by the working group that has volunteered to assist them to ensure that Ongar has the primary care facilities that it needs and deserves."