The ICB has provided on update on their disastrous proposals to permanently stop providing level 3 critical care at Furness General Hospital.
Our campaign has forced the ICB to delay these plans and to look at whether they need to run a public consultation.
Their latest update says that they are, again pushing back their decision on whether this decision needs a public consultation. This time until May. They have also called for another “clinical senate” to provide a second clinical review.
All their dither and delay and the uncertainty hanging over level 3 critical care service is making it harder to recruit the staff needed at FGH and is destabilising other services.
I can save them time on all of this. These proposals are completely unacceptable. All this time and money could be better invested in getting the service up and running again. Once again, I call on the ICB to abandon these short-sited proposals and focus all their effort into a proper roadmap to restoring level 3 critical care at FGH.
UPDATE FROM LANCASHIRE AND SOUTH CUMBRIA ICB ON THEIR PROPOSALS TO PERMANENTLY STOP PROVIDING LEVEL 3 CRITICAL CARE AT FGH:
The public engagement we ran during October and November 2025 is an important part of the rigorous and regulated legal process we need to follow prior to confirming or launching a formal consultation. We are committed to following the appropriate steps in the process which are needed prior to making a decision to launch a public consultation.
We have developed a Case for Change that is going through our governance process. This will be published on the ICB website once it is approved. The Critical Care Network have undertaken a further review and their position remains unchanged in that “that the current Level 3 provision – based on stabilisation and transfer – represents a safe and pragmatic solution for maintaining high-quality Critical Care services across UHMBT”.
Following further engagement with the Clinical Senate we have asked for a second clinical review, which the Yorkshire and North East Clinical Senate will undertake on the Pre-Consultation Business Case (PCBC). The Senate will perform a desktop review and also an on-site review at FGH, which will take a number of weeks to complete. The outcome will inform the further development of the PCBC, which will need approval from the ICB Board and assurance on the robustness of the process and proposals from NHS England as part of the national service change process. This will include a further appraisal of clinically viable options that meet the public consultation criteria and could then be consulted upon.
This will then require approval and to be taken through our governance processes. Whilst we consider the steps we need to take, we expect that we will be able to confirm our position on launching a public consultation after further discussion on the PCBC, which will take place during May 2026 at the earliest. However, this would be subject to the steps described above and approval from the ICB Board and NHS England and is, therefore, subject to change.
