Graham Vickery, county councillor for Redditch North, said Trust bosses had known about staff shortages in the maternity unit at the Alex but had done little to deal with it.
“The whole point of the maternity situation is that they have known about it for four years during which time nothing has changed.
“The midwives who are working in Redditch, the idea of them travelling to Worcester, I can’t see them being particularly happy about it.
“They’ve got this current deficit of £28 million and yet they’re talking of recruiting from overseas, and over recruiting – if that is the case and the have the resources to do that, why have they not done so before?”
Health bosses acknowledged that the uncertainty over the Alex was having a negative impact on staff.
The trust currently has high staff turnover and sickness rates with a number of significant vacancies at the Alex, particularly on night shifts and in surgery, as well as maternity.
The situation is so acute that the body working on the configuration of the Future of Acute Hospital Services in Worcestershire model urged that an agreed solution must be found quickly to prevent further losses of staff.
“The delay and uncertainty that we have had over the last few years is having an impact on our ability to recruit and we cannot ignore that,” interim chief executive Chris Tidman told the health board meeting on Wednesday.
