Ambitious targets to merge care services in Bexley have been pushed back until December.

Bexley Care was signed off in April last year by Bexley Council to join up health and social care services under a new partnership.

It’s hoped that combining services will cut bureaucracy and dozens of follow-up appointments – however, councillors were told last night the “ambitious timeline” has not been met.

Councillor Peter Reader said it was “disappointing” that targets set out in the service’s business plan had not been met.

Tom Brown, director of Bexley Care, told a scrutiny panel last night: “The original timeline was scheduled to go live in June. We couldn’t do consultations in June so it has slipped to December.

“We are on track at this moment to implement the plans at the beginning in December. It was always an ambitious timeline to deliver a significant change within organisations.

“What we can’t compromise is the risk and quality and safety of the patients. That has to be paramount, and that is the reason we delayed it from summer until December.”

Bexley Care would cut out hospital and GP visits by combining Oxleas NHS services with council and social care.

Patients would be able to contact a single team of health workers, instead of having to travel to numerous different consultants.

The service would relieve pressure on the already strained NHS facilities such as Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Mr Brown explained: “There have been some very legitimate questions asked about people with long-standing and very complex mental health issues, some of whom have had long-standing workers.

“How do we transition them from one worker to another, we can’t just switch one service off and start it again with somebody else.”

By combining services it could also bring costs down by about £5.5m across community health and adult social care.

So far this year £2.7m has already been saved.

“Most of the savings have already been delivered, but some more savings will come out when we take out the duplication of management,” Mr Brown said,

“We are not touching frontline clinical services, just managers.”