CONSULTATION on a major NHS review that could see local hospital services dramatically stripped back has been delayed for six months.
The Fit for the Future review will reconfigure provision at Whipps Cross University Hospital, and in the boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering and Barking and Dagenham.
Public consultation on its findings was originally scheduled for spring 2007, but is now likely to begin in October, health bosses have announced.
The Fit for the Future steering group, made up of representatives from seven north-east London health trusts, say they need more time to look at the implications for health services that any reconfiguration would have, and to review the information gathered so far.
Depending on the outcome of the review, Whipps Cross could be downgraded to either a walk-in centre or a hospital offering no acute care.
For full story and reaction, see this week's Guardian.
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