Following careful review of all feedback and the evidence presented, on 17 July 2025 NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board (MSE ICB) approved the following:
Summary of key decisions:
- Community outpatient and ambulatory care services at St Peter’s Hospital, Maldon will remain for up to five years while local NHS works to develop a new local health hub.
- A split-site stroke rehabilitation model will be introduced to improve access and reduce travel burden, with services based in Rochford and Brentwood.
- The freestanding midwife-led birthing unit previously at St Peter’s will be permanently relocated to Braintree, with antenatal and postnatal outpatient care remaining in Maldon.
The decisions reached reflect the ambition to improve health services for everyone who lives in mid and south Essex. MSE ICB listened carefully to feedback received on these proposals, and thanked everyone involved, including the members of the community and the staff involved who gave up their time to give their views, which have informed these decisions.
There will be a period of implementation, during which staff and local communities will be actively involved as their expertise will be critical in ensuring the best possible outcomes for patients are delivered by these changes. The Decision-Making Business Case on community services in mid and south Essex and accompanying papers are at:
We welcome this decision. It delivers the things we recommended in the evidence we gave to the public inquiry hearing held in March 2024. There we recommended that the in-hospital services should be delivered in the best places with critical masses of staff expertise and patient demand to provide best quality, safety and outcomes. We also recommended that all the community outpatient and ambulatory care services had to continue somewhere in the Maldon area at all times without any gap and that they had to be accessible. The decision to deliver this at St Peter’s has recognised that as it stands St Peter’s is unsafe and immediate measures will be taken to make it safe. It remains the best accessible place for the outpatient services so long as it is safe to do so.
Our independent academic report about accessibility to health services has contributed to this. We asked a question about this to the MSE ICB meeting in public held on 17 July which was answered favourably and as soon as we have the written reply this Q&A will be published.
SWF Health & Social Care Group 