A retiring Dorset County Hospital governor says he is worried about the future of local services – with more savings expected in the months to come.

Public governor Andy Hutchings says although services and standards are better than when he became a County Hospital governor nine years ago he fears that more cuts will undermine the efforts of staff.

The hospital made £9 million in savings in the last financial year and is expected to face a similar level of savings in the current year.

Mr Hutchings believes that it is now at the point where making more savings is almost impossible: “Each year we are told we have to make savings; savings after savings; and they do their very best. If you look at other hospitals in the south west, some are in millions of pounds of debt…I think we have done the very best we can do over the nine years I have been a governor in making savings and I don’t think the patients have suffered.”

But despite his concerns Mr Hutchings, who represented Weymouth and Portland, says the current situation is not as bad as it has been at DCH.

“It makes me worry but I think the hospital is in very good hands. When I first got on as a governor it was in special measures… now it’s not, thank goodness. A lot of work has gone in by a lot of very hard-working staff and volunteers.”

The former Weymouth and Portland borough councillor who is an alderman of the borough, is the County Hospital’s longest continuously serving governor. Others have served longer, but not continuously.

He admits that he would have carried on had the rules allowed him and has pledged to continue ‘keeping an eye’ on the Governing body.

He was praised for being a ‘critical friend’ at his final meeting in Dorchester.

Governors chairman Mark Addison said Mr Hutchings had made a fantastic contribution to discussions over the year with “courtesy, politeness and unfailing good humour.”

He said he had remaining connected to the people he represented, reflecting their views during discussions.

“Thanks you for your support – but that’s not to say you have not been a critic from time to time. You have been a ‘critical friend’ in the best of senses,” said Mr Addison.

Mr Hutchings told the meeting that when he and long-standing friend, the late Michel Hooper-Immins, nominated each other as governors they had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.

“The then chief executive left with two weeks of us joining and the chairman after six weeks…we didn’t know what we had done,” he said.

He paid tribute to former chairmen and chief executives and to hospital staff and volunteers, mentioning the chaplaincy team who, on one occasion managed to commandeer enough trolleys to get patients on the stroke unit to chapel, including Mr Hutchings who, it later transpired had not suffered a stroke but a broken femur.

Earlier in the meeting he recounted how, for ten years, his medical record had showed that his left foot had been amputated.

“As you can see, it hasn’t,” said Mr Hutchings, “But not once did anyone ever mention the fact that my missing limb was still there.”

During his time as a Governor Mr Hutchings has not claimed any of the expenses he was entitled to and says that he will still attend meetings – as an observer.

* Mr Hutchings was a Labour and Co-Op councillor on Weymouth and Portland Borough Council between 1983 and 2007; was elected an alderman in 2007 and today sits on a number of public bodies including the Weymouth and District Association of the Disabled; CAB; Weymouth Museum; Friends of Upwey Station; the Heart of Wessex Rail Partnership; the Society of Dorset Men, and chairs the Weymouth Area Senior Pensioners Forum.