We currently have good NHS services in Dorset. However, rising demand on services means we need to make significant changes to ensure you continue to have high-quality safe care that the NHS can afford both now and in the future.

It is important for people to stay well and better manage long-term conditions. To help them we will ensure they have the right information and support.

This can be achieved by:

The number of people living in Dorset is growing and is set to rise by around 50,000 by 2020. Of these 70% will be aged over 70.

More people are living longer with more long-term conditions like diabetes and dementia. This will increase demand for, and pressure on, our health services.

At the same time, fewer of us are suffering heart attacks, strokes or major accidents and if we do, we are more likely to survive. This is a good thing but puts pressure on the health and social care system.

Doing nothing is not an option if we want to ensure people continue to receive the generally good care that is currently provided in Dorset.  If we don’t plan to do things differently it is likely that:

These are just some examples of what might happen. That is why we started the Clinical Services Review (CSR).

Because of these mounting pressures, we ran two reviews on how Dorset’s NHS services could be delivered in the future. One, the Clinical Services Review (CSR), focused on how acute and community services could be delivered differently, and the other, the Mental Health Acute Care Pathway (MHACP), focused on improving how Dorset’s acute mental health services are delivered. We went out to public consultation on both reviews to ask people who use the services, local people in Dorset and the surrounding areas and NHS staff what they thought of the proposals. The invaluable feedback we received helped to shape the final decisions on how Dorset’s residents will receive care in the future.