Stroke patients and pregnant women will have to travel miles further in light of a decision to permanently close a 150-year-old hospital in Maldon.

However, there have been concerns that services from St Peter's Hospital in Maldon may drag on while patients are fed through the system.

Currently, there are 16 stroke rehabilitation beds at St Peter's Hospital. These could be redistributed to facilities in Brentwood and Rochford.

One option concentrates all stroke rehabilitation (SRU) in a single specialised unit at Brentwood and would provide 88 beds for intermediary care (IMC).

The SRU would be a single unit based at Brentwood Community Hospital. There would not be IMC beds at Brentwood – currently 25 – but in this option, they would be available at Mountnessing Court in nearby Billericay where there would be 22 beds.

Another option would see 25 stroke rehabilitation beds and IMC beds at Brentwood. There would be an additional 22 IMC beds at Mountnessing Court and 22 stroke beds at Cumberlege Intermediate Care Centre in Rochford.

Managers say this is better for access from the east of the catchment for stroke rehabilitation but does not create a single specialised SRU and leaves the southeast of the Mid and South Essex NHS area without IMC beds.

The Midwifery-led Birthing Unit at St Peter's Hospital – which saw approximately six births per month – has already transferred to the William Julien Courtauld Birthing Unit (WJC), in Braintree.

Ambulatory services include outpatient clinics, therapy, and diagnostic services, such as X-ray and blood tests. Following the temporary winter inpatient transfers in October 2023, ambulatory services have continued to be provided from St Peter's Hospital.

Annually over 80,000 ambulatory care appointments, including approximately 39,000 outpatient appointments, are provided by St Peter's Hospital.

That includes around 37,000 blood tests, 8,500 X-rays and 700 ultrasound examinations. Approximately 40 per cent of the outpatient appointments were attended by people who live within the Maldon District.

After closure, these services would be retained in the Maldon area. There are proposals to provide new NHS ambulatory accommodation, built by a developer and leased by the NHS in Maldon combined with primary care developments, but these are some time away from fruition and so suitable interim accommodation, accessible to local residents, is needed.

Options on what and how the final makeup of beds should be distributed are now set to go out for public consultation.

The current value of St Peter's is £6.2m which could be used to develop a new NHS site in the Maldon area.

Jonathan Dunk Chief Commercial Officer – Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust told a trust board at an extraordinary meeting on January 16: "Ambulatory services are the less defined ones. Regarding provision of the physical capacity we can't preempt the outcomes of the consultation in terms of securing new facilities."

He said St Peter's will remain open until all services are gone but delays need to be avoided.

He added: "Obviously where we can we will mothball appropriately the areas of the site to ensure we are only providing physical capacity where necessary.

He added: "While I can't commit to definitive times, I think it is fair to say the aspiration of the system that these things do not go on for multiple years in terms of implementation. There is a clear drive to get this done as quickly as possible."