£200k-per-year Wolverhampton to Cannock hospital bus facing axe

The X68 service launched only three weeks ago but hardly any patients or members of the public are using it.

The service, run by Arriva, is for patients who need non-emergency surgery at either site and is part of Wolverhampton's £30 million takeover of services at Cannock.

Any patient who is attending an appointment or requiring minor surgery at either hospital can travel on the bus free of charge. It is also free for staff members to use with relatives of patients or other members of public having to pay to use it.

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust pay for the service to be run.

When the announcement was made that buses would be running between the sites last year - New Cross Hospital chief executive David Loughton said he had 'no doubts' it would be a success.

But at an NHS board meeting held earlier this week, Mr Loughton told fellow board members it was a case of 'spot the passenger'.

Speaking to the Express & Star he said: "This has always been a concern because I've experienced this before when I was chief executive at Coventry and Rugby and was forced into putting on a bus service between the two sites which proved to be a white elephant.

"When you start consultation procedures everybody starts talking about transport and you then are pushed into using a service which nobody uses.

"We are transferring more activity in the next few weeks and it will be interesting to see what happens because we are paying for that bus service.

"It is being used by staff but by very few patients and hardly any members of public which is not great.

"In all fairness I will give it another six months and see how things go."

The launch of the bus service has been controversial from the word go.

A consultation, which was extended after complaints that people were not being allowed to have their say, revealed around 70 per cent of respondents had high levels of concern about the project, particularly around transport.

And on its opening day the launch received a mixed response with some patients saying it was a good idea and others citing concern about its reliability.

But Donald McIntosh, chief executive of Healthwatch Wolverhampton - an independent consumer champion organisation - said it was too early to judge the service.

"As with any bus service it takes a while for things to settle. It is still early days and a key thing is the transferring of services between Wolverhampton and Cannock has not yet been fully implemented."