DIRECTORS at Colchester's NHS Hospital Trust will be given an update on its merger with Ipswich Hospital next week.

The board of directors are due to meet on Tuesday and on the agenda is a verbal update from the director of clinical integration, Shane Gordon.

In February hospital trust leaders announced three possible scenarios in a bid to save services, including completely merging the trusts and care or merging but only integrating some services.

It is also possible one trust could “acquire” the other.

Bosses’ preferred option will be put forward in July before it is implemented in April 2018.

The proposed changes could save the trusts up to £33 million-a-year by 2021.

Services such as accident and emergency and maternity will be provided on both sites due to their demand.

Updates on patient care at Tuesday's meeting will reveal a vast year-on-year improvement in ambulance handover times.

In March, 91.4 per cent of patients arriving at Colchester's Accident and Emergency department were seen within the standard target of within four hours.

But in March 2016 the trust saw its worst four-hour wait of the year with just 71.6 per cent of patients seen in the target.

The NHS constitution says 95 per cent of patients should be treated and then admitted to hospital or discharged within four hours.

The meeting will also hear the deficit at Colchester's trust is now at £22million.

The meeting, open to the public, will be held in Postgraduate Medical Centre at Colchester General Hospital, at 9.30am.