CHANGES in the way people receive care from the NHS have been highlighted in a future plan for healthcare with the emphasis on care in the patient's own home.

The Five Year Forward Review of the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Sustainability and Transformation plan has now been published.

The plan emphasises how the model of care needs to change to address the shortfall in finances which the two counties will face if nothing is done in the way healthcare is delivered.

The plan said: "The model of care will move from a reliance on bed-based care to care in people's own homes/their usual place of residence, reducing crisis admissions, onward deterioration and poor outcomes at the point of discharge."

The plan goes on to say that some community hospitals may be able to operate without hospital beds and instead run as a locality hub for home-based community services integrated with primary care, including social care staff.

The model will seek to extend seven day access to high quality primary and community care where needed.

Mark Yates, independent STP chair, said in the plan: "There remains a public perception that being in hospital is the best place to be when people are unwell. "This is despite there being considerable evidence to the contrary, particularly for people who are frail.

"The essence of our STP is to change this by keeping people well and enabling them to remain in their own homes.

"We will achieve this by focusing our efforts more on what happens in our communities, not just in hospitals. We will build our system around resilient and properly resourced general practice, that has community services wrapped around them. This will relieve pressure on our hospitals, which will be freed up to focus on efficiently dealing with complex elective and emergency care."

People will be encouraged to live healthily, be resilient and avoid the need to access organised services for things that many people are able to deal with themselves.

There will be a review as part of the next phase of redesign, which include reviewing existing access points and the potential consolidation onto fewer individual sites. The sites that would need to be considered in Herefordshire are the existing minor injury units and the out of hours GP hubs.

Health bosses also want to explore the establishment of a single Emergency Centre with Specialist Services (ECSS) in Worcester, alongside two Emergency Centres (providing A&E functions) in Hereford and Redditch.

Consultations will be undertaken for specific service changes that are made under the guise of the STP in the coming months and years, where appropriate.